Guest Blogger

Mother’s Day is around the corner and the nation is absorbing a reality in which 42 percent of Americans who can give birth will likely lose their reproductive freedom within the coming months. So how can we best honor our mothers this Sunday? Trust them. Believe them when they tell you they have a detailed understanding of the opportunities and limitations of their lives. They may be

Articles continue to pop up on my newsfeed about how the pandemic has been detrimental to the mental health of many, especially young people. The isolation, lack of connection with peers, and the uptick in violence within homes and racism within communities during the last 2+ years have led to a mental health crisis for youth.  According to the 2021 CDC Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey (ABES) of 7,705 high school students, nearly half reported they persistently felt sad or hopeless and experienced emotional abuse in the home, while The Trevor Project’s 2021 Survey showed that 70% of LGBTQ+ youth stated that their mental health was “poor” most of the time or always during COVID-19.  In October 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) declared a national emergency in children's mental health. AAP President, Gabrielle A. Carlson said, “We are caring for young people with soaring rates of depression, anxiety, trauma, loneliness, and suicidality that will have lasting

I have a confession: As a woman and a feminist, I have felt a tinge of apathy - bordering on annoyance - towards Women's History Month. I've never shared this thought, even privately. I appreciate its existence. I believe it has value. So what's the problem? I think it feels like the bare minimum. As we enter a 5th wave of feminism - which we’ll all encounter regardless of our individual feelings or awareness of feminism - we are being challenged to upend long-held truths. You may have already felt this change. We are trading the traditional, male lens of history that values an unending record of battles, inventions, and clever or powerful individuals... with one that reexamines changing tides with a holistic appreciation for the effect those times had on a vast spectrum of peoples... Children. Families. Indigenous peoples. Traditionally marginalized folks of all stripes. We are challenged to grant them dignity by amplifying their voice in the records of the past.

I always knew that I had the heart to help people, but I was not clear on the path to go about it. When I think back to how I got where I am, I am often taken back to this specific time. I was a first-year at Arcadia University and I was opening a bank account for the first time all by myself. I do not remember a lot of it. It was such a mundane errand to run, but what I do remember is a conversation that I had with the bank teller. She was asking me what my major was and I told her that I wanted to go into a trauma counseling field. Then, she asked me if I experienced anything similar to what they have. I told her no. She shifted into a more serious tone and asked me how I was going to relate to anything that they tell me if I have not gone through it. That one conversation made me question my decisions. How was I going to counsel if I could never relate? Now, I am a mental health counselor intern at a high school in Philadelphia. After spending some time learning my way around and getting to know some of the youth, they have started to open up to me

“Hell Yeah”, Black History Month Still Matters…. Black History Month affords us the chance to challenge what we learned in history, dig deeper, and find out the actual events of the past that were not taught in schools or portrayed in media. The media tends to showcase the negatives of the Black community, such as poverty, drugs, incarceration, lack of education, etc. These portrayals paint a biased and unfair stereotype in our minds.