Zuher Belal put a black pencil on the rectangular piece of paper stretched out on a table. The 21-year-old native of Syria drew a Muslim man with arms outstretched in prayer. Then, he drew an airplane dropping a bomb.
Mental Health & Trauma
“I call it present traumatic stress disorder. When you have post-traumatic stress disorder it means the trauma has ended. With our people it is a perpetual trauma that is inflicted on almost a daily basis,” one lifelong resident of Bakersfield says.
“Perhaps the biggest deficit in our clients’ lives is a lack of two things – it’s a lack of community and it’s a lack of self-esteem,” says Rob Gitin, who works with vulnerable youth in San Francisco.
Valley Public Radio in California's Central Valley reports on what law enforcement agencies in the valley say they are doing to help police officers cope with the mental strain of a violent line of work.
Opioid addiction has claimed thousands of lives in San Diego County. Understanding who is dying and how addiction has changed over the last 15 years is central to confronting the addiction epidemic.
Three out of four adults of Mexican origin who experience a mental illness will not seek professional help, and the problem of under utilization is even higher among Mexican immigrants.
Community violence and a visit to the doctor might seem unrelated. But for people living in violent communities, and the police who patrol them, it's often more closely related than people think.
“The word we use for mental illness in Vietnamese is ‘crazy,’” Lanie Tran said. “If you’re a Buddhist, you believe you or your family members did something wrong in a previous birth. If you’re Catholic, you believe God is punishing you for something you did that was mean or wrong.”
Two reporters set out to answer a question: Was the horrific death of a mentally ill inmate in a California jail an anomaly or evidence of systemic deficiencies that could lead to more deaths?
The shocking call came a decade ago from campus police at UC Berkeley. Kwang Ho Kim's son, a straight-A student, had dumped all his clothes on the bed and set them on fire.