Sgt. Billy Killebrew: Helping Kids Who Deal with Trauma in Brownsville, Texas


billy killebrew of brownsville police handle with care

Brownsville Police Sgt. Billy Killebrew knows a lot of children experience divorce, witness domestic violence, and suffer other trauma at home or in the community. He wants to help those children. So he worked with advocates to start the Handle With Care Program at the newly opened Jubilee Leadership Academy campus in Brownsville, Texas. For the program, Brownsville police notify campus leaders when they encounter children at a traumatic scene, so school personnel can provide support the next day, as needed. “We never know what kids go through at home, they come to school, and sometimes they just don't feel like being there. They're in a bad mood, and just like us, as adults, you know, we have a bad day and not everybody knows a source of that bad day,” said Killebrew, the ...

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Survey: Some Teachers are Told to Not Talk About Racism


Educator teaching students

About 24% of teachers say they have been told to limit classroom conversations about political and social issues, such as racism, according to a recent survey. The nationally representative survey was taken by over 3,800 teachers and principals by the RAND Corporation in January of 2022 to gauge educator’s views on politicized topics in schooling. In the survey, 54% of teachers and principals urged no legal limits on classroom conversations about racism, sexism, and other topics that some people disagree about. “In a time when simply carrying out the essential functions of their jobs is a herculean task, educators have been faced with the additional challenge of addressing contentious, politicized topics in their schools and classrooms,” according to the report. How does ...

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You Can Help Researchers Across Texas!


Patient greeted by doctor.

UT Health San Antonio and other Texas universities are looking for healthy adults age 18 and older to participate in research studies across the state. Learn more about this opportunity and how you can participate! What is the Aim of the Studies? The University of Texas System Health Biobank Consortium is a collaborative effort among eight UT institutions to standardize and expand access to human biospecimens. Biospecimens are materials from the human body. They include tissues (hair, skin, or organs) and fluids (blood, urine, or saliva). These samples contain cellular, molecular, and chemical information. Along with the samples, biosbanks store biospecimens with personal and medical information (age, sex, race/ethnicity) and details about a donor’s lifetime environmental ...

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Write a Medical School Oath to Fight for Social Justice!


young male doctor swearing medical school oath

Medical students start their journey to be a doctor with an ethical oath. But the classic Hippocratic Oath and other versions are missing doctors' modern obligations for social justice. You can use the Salud America! action pack, “Write a Medical School Oath to Fight for Social Justice,” to write your own medical school oath to reflect doctors’ ever-evolving responsibilities to address systemic racism, social justice, and health equity. The action pack has materials and technical assistance to help you connect with your peers and school leaders, draft a new or updated medical oath, and build support to address health and social inequities. "Writing a modern medical school oath can be a meaningful experience for students, and better reflect the evolving dynamics of the ...

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See the 20 Big Universities that Are Pushing Latino Representation in Higher Education


Latino education

Latino or Hispanic-serving colleges and universities have risen 94% in the last 10 years, from 293 in 2010 to 569 in 2020, according to a recent report by Excelencia in Education. Now 20 of the largest Latino-serving colleges are forming a new alliance to double Latino doctorates and increase the number of Latino professors by 20% by 2030. The Alliance of Hispanic Serving Research Universities, announced June 2022, aims to help increase Latino representation in higher education. Latinos make up less than 6% of US doctoral students and only 5% of college faculty. “Hispanics are the largest minority group in the United States and are now 17% of the workforce, yet they continue to be underrepresented in higher education,” Dr. Heather Wilson, Chair of the Alliance, said in a news ...

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Will Your Child Get Free School Lunches This Year?


free school lunches

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, many schools had the flexibility to offer school meals free to all public-school students. Now, some of this flexibility is expiring and many schools can only serve free meals to certain students starting this 2022-2023 school year, according to the USDA. “As we all get through this change, we ask everyone to be patient with school nutrition professionals and thank them for working to help children during such a tough time. The [USDA] and the Biden-Harris Administration fully support the school leaders and school meal heroes running the school meals programs,” according to the USDA. For Latino students, whose families often face wage gaps and nutrition insecurity, these changes could have a significant impact. Here is what these recent ...

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Latinos Face Challenges in Achieving a ‘Just Recovery’ From COVID-19: Exploring the 2022 County Health Rankings National Report



Where you live, work, and play significantly impacts overall wellbeing. That’s why it’s important to explore and understand health inequities that can impact quality of life and health outcomes for Latinos and other people of color. County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (CHR&R) is one such resource that helps leaders and county residents evaluate their community on a national scale. Created by the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CHR&R publishes an annual national findings report. The report revealed worsening health trends for women, minorities, and low-income individuals in 2022, similar to the 2021 report findings, but driven by COVID-19, the worst public health crisis in more than a ...

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Abigail Rubio: Changing the Medical School Oath to Address Racism


Abigail Rubio medical school oath 6

Abigail Rubio, like all medical students, started her journey to be a doctor with an oath. In the traditional Hippocratic Oath, future physicians pledge to do no harm, treat people not symptoms, and respect patient privacy. This sets the tone for medical students’ time in school, as well as their practice later. But Rubio knew something was missing from the oath. She and her peers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, with the guidance of their faculty advisers, wrote their own medical oath and recited it in August 2020 with new emphasis on COVID-19, health care inequities, and racism as a public health crisis. This is part of a rising trend of medical students writing their own oaths on their ever-evolving responsibilities as doctors to address systemic ...

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Introducing Clean Hands & Spaces Bilingual Training


Introducing Clean Hands & Spaces Bilingual Training

Did you know that good hand hygiene can result in less gastrointestinal and respiratory illness and fewer missed school days? Good hygiene practices are an important strategy to keep everyone in schools and early care and education (ECE) facilities healthy. But good hygiene practices aren’t always easy to implement in busy educational settings. The good news is that new resources are available to help K-12 and ECE staff learn how to best encourage good hygiene practices in their educational settings. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the CDC Foundation have developed a free, interactive, online training on hand hygiene and cleaning. The Clean Hands and Spaces online training was created specifically for educators, administrators, and supporting ...

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