February 2021 Newsletter

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February 2021 Newsletter

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February 2021

Families Empowering Families

In this issue:

Mental Health Advocacy Day Recap

Black History Month

Cultivating Empathy in Children

Happy February!

First, We also wanted to thank everyone who came to Mental Health Advocacy Day this year! It was the first time the event was virtual and it was a success! Check out the recap and videos from the day below.

This month we are celebrating Black History Month! Below we share ways that all families can celebrate Black History Month and how to teach children about racism. In addition, we wanted to spotlight the mental health of youth of color in Vermont and resources that are available to support them.

Valentine’s Day was earlier this week, but we like to take the entire month of February to focus on love and kindness! Below we provide resources and ideas for fostering love and empathy with your children throughout February and the rest of the year.

VFFCMH staff

Mental Health Advocacy Day Recap

Mental Health Advocacy Day on the 1st was a huge success! Over 350 people registered to attend. It is amazing to see such support for advocating for mental health in our state. Much thanks to NAMI Vermont, Vermont Care Partners, and Vermont Association for Mental Health and Addiction Recovery for organizing the event.

If you missed any part of the day you can find a video of the entire event here!

Black History Month and Black mental health

It’s Black History Month! This is a month to celebrate all that Black people have contributed to our society while also remembering the systematic oppression and racism they have endured. All families can celebrate Black history month and parenting.com has some great ideas of how to!

Their suggestions include:

Reading books by Black authors
Watching movies about Black history
Seeing some Black art at a local museum

Vermont’s population is predominately white with Black people making up 1.29% of the population. So what’s it like being Black in Vermont? One young man shared his experience of growing up in Vermont. It gives a stark view of the experiences of Black people in Vermont from a young age and in everyday interactions.

Black youth and other youth of color in Vermont reported significantly higher rates of mental health distress on all indicators in the 2019 Vermont Youth Risk Behavior High School Survey.

34% have felt so sad or hopeless they have stopped doing some activities.
22% have self-harmed.
17% have made a suicide plan.
10% have attempted suicide.

These results are concerning and show that Black and other youth of color need support in Vermont.

So how are Black youth being supported in Vermont?

Living Proof Mentoring provides free mentoring to Black youth and their families in Vermont.

Spectrum Youth and Family Services has a Multicultural Youth Program which has multicultural youth help desks at the Burlington, Winooski, and Essex high schools. The Multicultural Youth Program also holds the Multicultural Youth Leadership Conference in Burlington each year which VFF proudly supports through our Youth in Transition programming.

Not sure how to have a conversation about diversity and inclusion or racism with your child? Check out this Anti-Racism For Kids 101 guide which includes tips and age appropriate picture books suggestions to help children understand the importance of diversity and inclusion.

May your February be filled with love!

Valentine’s Day is on the 14th and we like to focus on love and kindness for the entire month because why not? In order to have our children grow into loving and kind adults we have to help them learn about empathy. Empathy consists of three skills:

feeling another individual’s emotions (e.g., if you feel scared, it makes me feel scared);
reasoning about another person’s perspective (e.g., you “put yourself in my shoes,” and try to imagine what I am thinking or feeling)
wanting to help — feeling sympathy and concern for someone who is vulnerable or distressed.

Children start developing empathy around 3 years of age and there’s simple ways that parents can help their children become more empathetic. Here’s some of the tips from Sunshine Parenting.

Help children understand empathy in simple terms like showing a friend that they care or being there for a friend when their friend is sad.

Teach your child to respond with empathy to others’ bad behavior. This is a wonderful to help children learn how to navigate conflict.

Model empathy. Children learn the most by watching adults so let your children see you being empathetic by offering support or kindness to others.

Games! There are so many empathy games to play! There’s online games, apps, and you can play games like ‘Name the emotion‘ with younger children.

It’s important to remember that people show empathy in different ways. Here’s a great article on how people with Asperger’s diagnoses show empathy. It is more important for children and youth to have empathy for others, not that they show is in the same ways as everyone else.