This week I was visiting a retirement center seeing one of my relatives. We were having lunch and one of the staff members sat down at our table and begin to discuss some of the routine matters within that facility. The conversation moved in the direction of my career and...
Announcing Lakecloud.ai
Lakeside has been providing professional development training for over 25 years. We have developed social-emotional, parenting and trauma-informed curriculum utilized by over 70,000 participants across a variety of professions, who are providing a diverse array of services to those with significant needs. This is most appropriately categorized as therapeutic education,...
A Trauma-Informed Social Network
One of the major impacts of providing trauma-informed training to thousands of individuals, as Lakeside has in the past 15 years, is the comradery that is established when people begin to share knowledge, language, resources, community relationships and common experiences. In our training of over 70,000 individuals from all walks...
Identifying Moral Injury
We spend a great deal of time talking about the impact of trauma and adversity in the mental health field – and rightly so. Trauma and adversity are common causes of mental health deficits. Yet there is another type of psychological experience that also has significant impact on the mental...
May is Mental Health Awareness Month
May is the month where we strive to gain a global awareness of mental health issues in our world. Often mental health is referred to as a sense of well-being while attempting to avoid the stigma of labels, judgements or lack of knowledge about mental health in our world. A...
Is Gambling a Growing Addiction in Teens?
I have written often about the impact of social media on our teenagers. They are often targeted and become negatively impacted by some of the social media messaging that they are exploring. Another potentially addicting aspect of what is available on social media is gambling. When we think of teen...
How Fragile is Youth Mental Health Funding?
As a country we have come to realize that our youth mental health has reached a significant crisis point. Our mental health facilities are stretched to capacity. Our providers are reporting staff burn-out and staff shortages. We have experienced a significant decrease in grant funding. Our schools are overwhelmed with the...
Why Should We Invest in Prevention Programs?
I remember in the early part of my career we decided that Lakeside’s programs should be focused more at preventing some of the more significant problems in our youth community. I was told by a number of professionals that we would never be able to achieve the goal of prevention....
What’s Up with the Anxiety in our Youth?
Along with other mental health struggles, we recognize that our youth are reporting high levels of anxiety. We certainly see it in our programs at Lakeside, but we also know it from many sources such as schools, mental health facilities and systems of care that are serving our kids. What...
Do Teens Experience Holiday Stress?
We all have certain stressors during the holiday season. It is a time of busyness, family gatherings, shopping, wrapping, cooking, holiday events and lots of other activities. Also, holidays can be times of loss and grief where loved ones have passed. If there is family dysfunction or trauma, that too...