Muhammad Abu-Rmaileh
Kanye West couldn't have said it better myself. I have loved my time here in New Orleans. Being from Little Rock, Arkansas, New Orleans was never far away, but always a journey to get there. There was always something that stopped me from coming like money, housing, weather, etc. It was always a place people wanted to go and visit, but never actually commit too. It made me sad. When my parents first made the decision to leave their family in Jordan and come to America, they ended up in New Orleans. The city has always held a special place in my heart. I grew up hearing of Mardi Gras and bread pudding and hot summer nights. I lived off those stories. When I was offered the opportunity to come to New Orleans to work, I was more than happy to accept. I could think of nothing better to do this summer.
The Louisiana Child Trauma Project aims to improve access to needs-driven, evidence-based mental and behavioral health services in child welfare. Louisiana is one of 9 states that show the effectiveness of this program. Our goal is to have caseworkers adopt a screen called the Trauma and Behavioral Health Screen (TBH Screen). This screen helps caseworkers immediately assess what type of mental health afflictions a child might have, which helps the clinician determine which type of therapy is best for the child. The ultimate goal is for clinicians to be trained and to utilize Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help addresses dysfunctional emotions, maladaptive behaviors and cognitive processes a through goal-oriented explicit systematic procedures. Basically, it helps one deal with his/her relationship with bad thinking, which leads to better behaviors and actions. CBT has some of the highest success rates in helping children cope with PTSD, anxiety disorders, depression, etc. The body of work behind understanding how the therapy works is extensive and the literature supports its effectiveness in helping children overcome their mental illnesses. There aren't many other programs that would give me access to this type of research. My job includes sorting through the TBH data and doing some basic statistics. The results have so far shown a high prevalence of PTSD among 13-18 year old children (100% had a diagnosis of some form of PTSD), which was unexpected. More time is needed to get a better picture of mental illness in Louisiana, but this data gives us a promising start.