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Category: Parents
ADHD medication “holidays”?
June 13, 2022
As summer rolls around, families may ask whether their children can have a “holiday” from their psychoactive medication, especially for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We asked Lawrence Amsel, MD, MPH, a REACH faculty member and associate professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, to lay out the pros and cons.
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Helping families deal with holiday stress
November 17, 2021
“In some ways the holidays this year will be harder than last year for many people,” said Deborah Buccino, MD, pediatrician and REACH board member. “Earlier, we had pretty clear-cut rules about what you could and could not do safely. This year, we have a lot more gray areas.”
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8 Tips for Working with Mental Health Therapists
October 20, 2021
Many patients who have mental health conditions need talk therapy in addition to the treatment you provide as the pediatric primary care provider (PCP). If you practice in an area where therapists are available, we hope you have developed referral relationships, as you learned in your REACH training. You may also see patients who are already working with a therapist. In either case, the communication between you and the therapist makes a huge difference in the quality of care the two of you provide. To learn how PCPs and therapists can collaborate to improve the mental health of children and adolescents, we talked with clinical psychologist Kevin Stark, PhD, a founder of The REACH Institute’s CATIE program, and pediatrician Hilary Bowers, MD, director of behavioral and mental health services at Children’s Primary Care Medical Group, a large pediatric practice in San Diego and Riverside counties in California.
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Getting through to difficult patients and families
September 8, 2021
It’s 10:30 Monday morning, and you’re 45 minutes behind. Earlier, you had to confront a receptionist about coming in late again. You have to get out today by 4:30 so you can get to your daughter’s softball game. Beating under all this stress is worry about your mom, who has been diagnosed with stage 2B breast cancer.
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Helping patients through divorce
February 22, 2021
“Parents who are going through a divorce really want to believe their children are OK,” said Lisa Blum, PsyD, a licensed clinical therapist on the faculty of The REACH Institute’s CATIE program. “They’re terrified that they’re hurting their kids. So if Sally is doing her homework and Johnny isn’t acting out, the parents think, ‘Whew, good, they’re fine!’ But often they’re not fine.” Though divorce rates in the US have been declining for years – including, according to early reports, during 2020 – the rates are still high. Each divorce or separation brings loss, disruption, and pain to any children involved.
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10 ways to help families through the holidays
November 17, 2020
If you’re like most pediatric primary care providers (PCPs), you’ve seen an increase in child mental health issues due to COVID. Research shows that the pandemic, with its consequent disruption and isolation, has increased adolescents’ risk of trauma, depression, and anxiety. Families are dealing with grief, the anxiety of whatever “school” means this week or this month, and, in many cases, loss of income. Families of color and low-income families have been hardest hit by the pandemic itself, by the economic and social fallout, and by the attendant impairment of mental health. And now come the holidays.
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Working with challenging families
October 13, 2020
You’re in the consultation room with Anita, who first brought her 15-year-old son Vic to you two weeks ago. Vic has been suspended from school several times for increasingly dangerous behavior. Anita uses a wheelchair because she has multiple sclerosis. Today she is distraught. Last night, she forbade Vic to leave the house, but he went anyway. He didn’t come home last night or go to school this morning. Anita has called everyone she can think of, but no one knows where he is. The police won’t help until he has been missing at least 24 hours. Anita has come to you as a last resort. When you saw Vic, you were troubled by his history of uncontrolled behavior and his uncooperative stance. You were hoping to get him to open up in a follow-up visit. But now Anita is here alone, frantic because she doesn’t know where Vic is. What do you do?
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Building family resilience
July 23, 2020
“Families provide a kind of protective membrane for children when crazy things are happening around them,” said William Saltzman, PhD. Dr. Saltzman is a faculty member of the REACH program Child/Adolescent Training in Evidence-Based Psychotherapies. “Families really have been on the front line throughout the pandemic,” Dr. Saltzman said. “It’s been a rollercoaster ride from the beginning, with abrupt school shutdowns; the exhaustion of becoming the 24/7 caregiver, teacher, playmate, and breadwinner; and now having to figure out largely on their own how to navigate the upcoming school year.”
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Helping patients & families cope with chronic disease
January 27, 2020
In treating young patients who have chronic physical conditions, health care professionals focus — as they must — on alleviating the physical suffering caused by the disease. However, as a graduate of the REACH course Patient-Centered Mental Health in Pediatric Primary Care, you know the importance of supporting the mental and emotional health of young patients and their caregivers. A new article in Pediatrics highlights the importance of mental health care for families dealing with chronic illness.
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