NORMAN. WELL, GRIFFIN MEMORIAL HOSPITAL HAS BEEN THE STATE’S PRIME GEARY MENTAL HEALTH CARE HOSPITAL FOR A CENTURY. NOW, THE STATE SAYS THAT BY MOVING THAT HOSPITAL HERE TO OKLAHOMA CITY, THEY’LL HAVE A LOT MORE CARE AND ACCESS FOR MORE RESIDENTS. NOW, THAT NEW CAMPUS WILL BE LOCATED ON OSU OAKS CURRENT CAMPUS, AND THEY’LL HAVE MORE THAN 100 BEDS THAN THE CURRENT HOSPITAL IN NORMAN. ALLOWING SPACE TO CARE FOR 330 PATIENTS. THERE WILL ALSO BE AN URGENT RECOVERY CENTER FOR THOSE IN MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS AND LEADERS SAY THIS LOCATION IS IDEAL BECAUSE IT’S ACCESSIBLE AND IT’S NEAR RESOURCE. HIS IT’LL BE PAID FOR BY SELLING GRIFFIN MEMORIAL IN NORMAN, ARPA FUNDS THE CITY OF OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLAHOMA COUNTY AND PHILANTHROPIC ORGANIZATIONS. THE DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL HEALTH AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE ALSO SAYS THAT THE FIVE YEAR ECONOMIC IMPACT OF THIS HOSPITAL TO OKLAHOMA CITY WILL BE NEARLY $450 MILLION IN JOBS. TAXES, EMERGENCY ROOM COSTS AND HOMELESSNESS. NOW, WE SPOKE TO THE COMMISSIONER JUST A FEW MINUTES AGO WHO SAYS HAVING A STATE OF THE ART FACILITY HERE HELPS REDUCE THE STIGMA AND WILL BENEFIT OKLAHOMANS AS WE’LL BE ABLE TO OFFER TREATMENT AND CARE ON DEMAND. WE WILL HAVE AN URGENT RECOVERY CENTER SO IF WHAT YOU NEED IS MEDICINE AND TO MEET WITH THE THERAPISTS, YOU CAN DO THAT. AND THEN FOR THOSE THAT NEED ADDITIONAL CARE, WE WILL HAVE BEDS AVAILABLE TO PROVIDE THAT CARE. AND THEN THE N

$147M mental health hospital coming to Oklahoma City

The hospital will be on the Oklahoma State University-OKC campus near Interstate 44 and West Reno Avenue.

Updated: 5:22 PM CDT Sep 12, 2023

A $147 million mental health hospital is coming to Oklahoma City.The hospital will be on the Oklahoma State University-OKC campus near Interstate 44 and West Reno Avenue. More beds will be added to serve Oklahomans in need of service, plus bringing in around 250 new jobs.Griffin Memorial Hospital has been the state’s primary mental health hospital for a century, but officials said relocating to OKC allowed them to expand their care in the metro. The new hospital will have 100 more beds than the current hospital, allowing space to care for 330 patients.Get the latest news stories of interest by clicking here.There will also be an urgent recovery center for those in a mental health crisis. Now, leaders said the location is ideal because it’s accessible and near resources.It’ll be paid for by selling Griffin Memorial Hospital in Norman, ARPA funds, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma County and philanthropic organizations. The Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse also said the five-year economic impact of the hospital to OKC will be nearly $450 million in jobs, taxes, emergency room costs and homelessness.KOCO 5 spoke with the commissioner, who said having a state-of-the-art facility helps reduce the stigma and benefits Oklahoma.>> Download the KOCO 5 App”We’ll be able to offer treatment and care on demand. We will have an urgent recovery center if what you need is medicine and to meet with a therapist, you can do that, and then for those who need additional care, we will have beds available to provide that care,” said Commissioner Carrie Slatton-Hodges with the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.The new hospital is planned to open in 2026.Top HeadlinesOklahoma investigating disgraced ex-Baylor coach Briles being on field with Sooners assistant Jeff LebbyParalyzed hockey player’s rehab videos get attention from Mark Wahlberg82-year-old man dies after crash involving semi-trailer on Turner Turnpike in Oklahoma County, OHP saysPolice search for suspect after shots fired in Oklahoma CityCub conundrum: Officers, bear expert save bear cub stuck in a tree

OKLAHOMA CITY —

A $147 million mental health hospital is coming to Oklahoma City.

The hospital will be on the Oklahoma State University-OKC campus near Interstate 44 and West Reno Avenue. More beds will be added to serve Oklahomans in need of service, plus bringing in around 250 new jobs.

Griffin Memorial Hospital has been the state’s primary mental health hospital for a century, but officials said relocating to OKC allowed them to expand their care in the metro. The new hospital will have 100 more beds than the current hospital, allowing space to care for 330 patients.

Get the latest news stories of interest by clicking here.

There will also be an urgent recovery center for those in a mental health crisis. Now, leaders said the location is ideal because it’s accessible and near resources.

It’ll be paid for by selling Griffin Memorial Hospital in Norman, ARPA funds, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma County and philanthropic organizations. The Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse also said the five-year economic impact of the hospital to OKC will be nearly $450 million in jobs, taxes, emergency room costs and homelessness.

KOCO 5 spoke with the commissioner, who said having a state-of-the-art facility helps reduce the stigma and benefits Oklahoma.

>> Download the KOCO 5 App

“We’ll be able to offer treatment and care on demand. We will have an urgent recovery center if what you need is medicine and to meet with a therapist, you can do that, and then for those who need additional care, we will have beds available to provide that care,” said Commissioner Carrie Slatton-Hodges with the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.

The new hospital is planned to open in 2026.

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The Great Recovery is a series examining how a surge in innovation, outreach, access and attention to equity is improving our mental health system. It is supported by a grant from Wellcome Trust.

Third-grader Noah Hill at Dr. Ronald E. McNair Public School 5 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, has learned a very simple method to calm himself: “Breathe in through your nose,” he says, closing his eyes behind his dark-rimmed glasses to take an inbreath, “and breathe out with a whisper.” This is the so-called “ocean breathing” he has been taught at his school, and he’s a fan: “Breathing like that takes my stress away,” he says.

At the start of this school year, all public schools in New York — from pre-kindergarten through grade 12 — are required to offer two to five minutes of mindful breathing every day to improve mental health. As part of this initiative, the city has rolled out a citywide professional development program for educators to make sure at least one staff member in each school is trained in mindful breathing practices. Mindful breathing in this context is taught as a secular practice that students of any religious tradition can adopt as a powerful tool to cope with anxiety and stress.

There is an urgent need to focus on students’ mental health. The international COH-FIT study showed a drastic increase in depression, anxiety and persistent frustration among youth, compared to 2019. More than a third of US students reported in 2021 that they experienced poor mental health during the Covid pandemic, and 44 percent describe themselves as persistently sad or hopeless. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in five children struggles with anxiety, and almost half experience at least one serious stressor at home,  like food insecurity or a caregiver’s addiction. Even before the pandemic, mental health was getting worse among high school students, according to prior CDC data.

“A lot of our students have anxiety or anger, and it’s very tough at home,” Deanna Lashley, a physical education teacher at PS 5, confirms.

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Several schools and universities are responding to the findings by implementing stress relief and mental wellbeing programs. “There’s nothing more important that we can teach our kids than mindfulness,” PS 5 School Chancellor David Banks said as he introduced the program.

Erica Sibinga, a pediatrics professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, has published several studies that show the positive impact of mindfulness on children and teenagers, especially youths with trauma and significant stressors. “We see mental health benefits,” Sibinga told the New York Times. “We see some behavioral benefits. Youth are more likely not to engage in conflict — more likely to walk away from contentious discussions. They express greater acceptance of themselves.”

When New York Mayor Eric Adams announced mindfulness classes in New York at the end of last semester, critics swiftly accused him of choosing the wrong priorities. “Kids learn to breathe whether they’re in a classroom or not,” opined conservative commentator Tim Hoefer, CEO of the Empire Center for Public Policy, demanding that schools focus on math skills and solving absenteeism. 

Yet schools that have implemented similar programs have established a body of scientific research that shows mindfulness practices can significantly reduce anxiety and stress.

“Some people would dismiss it and say, ‘What is this feely, feely good stuff?’ No, go look at the science,” Adams said at a press conference this June. “Breathwork helps the entire physiology.” He called the initiative “a game-changer. Breathing calms your nervous system, it helps to center us and helps us regain our sense of balance and focus. It is a valuable, low-cost tool that is proven to improve mental health and wellbeing.”

New York schools are hardly pioneers in this regard. Students in England and other parts of Europe have collected positive evidence of mindful breathing’s benefits in hundreds of schools. Over the past ten years, youth meditation programs have been implemented in England (Mindfulness in Schools Project), other parts of the U.S. (Mindful Schools and MindUp), Canada (Mindful Education), Israel (The Mindfulness Language) and India (The Alice Project). 

“Are schools the right place to teach meditation?” researchers asked in a recent meta study and came to the conclusion: “From the standpoint of maximizing reach, the answer is clearly yes. Unlike other potential sites for intervention, schools have contact with large numbers of children on a regular basis and across their formative developmental years where lifelong habits may be established.” 

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The researchers also note that mental training is part of skill acquisition, can induce plasticity in the brain that assists learning, and that “meditation education aligns with the 21st century notion of schooling which views learning as a holistic process that seeks to educate students academically, emotionally, socially, ethically and spiritually.”

Though mindfulness has become a bit of a catch-all term for all kinds of secularized practices, students benefit from a structured approach, Sibinga’s research has shown.

Recent studies also confirm the positive impact on educators who struggle with various stressors themselves. “As a teacher with 12 years of classroom experience, I do believe there are benefits to mindfulness and daily breathwork,” says New York school teacher Abimbola Cole Kai-Lewis, who welcomes the new initiative. “I’m convinced of this because of what my middle school students endured during the pandemic — while I, their teacher, contended with some of the greatest challenges of my career. Handling those challenges required skills that no one, in all of my years of undergraduate and graduate study, had taught me.” 

While “slogging through online learning,” she introduced her students to meditation. “Breathing exercises had steadied me on my side of the screen and, sometimes, them on theirs during the pandemic,” Kai-Lewis attests. “It had kept my demons at bay when my relentless monitoring of skyrocketing Covid-19 infection rates led me to lock myself away in my second-floor apartment. Amid those frightening increases, I breathed and meditated before turning on the laptop that was my connection to a litany of classes, meetings and my students.”

A 2022 meta-analysis of educator wellbeing initiatives found that not only did mindfulness have the most robust evidence base, it was also the only intervention that created sustained changes in educator wellbeing, between three and five months after delivery.

At the Laveen Elementary School in Phoenix, Arizona, mindfulness has been an integral part of the curriculum for several years. “You can feel it in our school,” teacher Alicia Harp confirms. “Knowing that we are in this together and that we want the best for each other is an amazing feeling I have not felt in any other school building before we adopted the mindfulness practice.” Her colleague Jackie Morales who has been training in mindful practices with Mindful Schools speaks of a “huge shift” that has occurred through the practice. “It’s so great to work in a community where we can rely on each other.”

In Bed-Stuy, Noah Hill demonstrates how to jump into a powerful warrior stance that he has learned in mindful yoga classes. His friend Shawn Boyce adds, “When I get into problems, I take a breath so nothing can happen to me.” 

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Learn more about all the fun panels and special guests we have planned—then buy your ticket to join us in California this October!

Our second annual REAL SIMPLE Weekend is almost here! The event, taking place from Oct. 19-22, 2023, is an opportunity to relax, explore the beautiful seaside village of La Jolla, Calif., and meet and mingle with our editors and special guests.

Our editors will be moderating a variety of panels—on topics including mindfulness, decorating with color, beauty tips, and cooking inspiration—with expert panelists lending their insight. Basically, the weekend will include all kinds of discussions about unique ways to enjoy and simplify life—that’s kind of our brand, after all. In between the panels, there will be no shortage of relaxation and sight-seeing opportunities, guided by our gracious hosts at The Estancia La Jolla Hotel & Spa.

We’d love for you to join us in California this October for a fun-filled weekend. Buy your ticket here and learn more about the informative panels and special guests below.

Panel: Finding the Magic in the Mundane

What happens when you approach every day with mindfulness? This panel discusses the importance of little rituals and how to create them, along with tips on teaching your brain to go positive.

Moderator: Lisa Friedman

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Adams touts this program as a way to help with students’ mental health.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams practices mindful breathing techniques, and beginning Sept. 7, public school students in all five boroughs will too. 

Adams’ new mindfulness program will have students from kindergarten to 12th grade spending between two and five minutes daily practicing mindful breathing. 

Right now, public school teachers are being trained to lead mindful breathing sessions by the Yoga and Mindful Teacher Preparation Program. According to its website, graduates of YMTPP give yoga and mindful breathing sessions to public school students more than once per day.

Adams touts this program as a way to help with students’ mental health.

“We live in a time of toxic social media communities, constant news flashes, and unfiltered alerts, all leaving a toll on the mental health of our students. But, today, it is time for our students to calm their nervous systems down,” said  Adams, while announcing the program in June at Bed-Stuy’s P.S. 5 Ronald McNair school. “Mindful breathing can be done by anyone, anywhere, and anytime. … Mindful breathing is another way we are teaching our young people healthy habits that will last a lifetime.”

In 2019, when he was the borough president, Adams sought to bring meditation, mindfulness and yoga to all Brooklyn public schools. The program, which first launched in East New York, did not materialize borough-wide because of the pandemic the following year. Now, he’s finishing what he started. 

Eric Adams at East New York’s Vista Academy for the launch of a pilot to bring mindfulness, meditation and yoga to East Brooklyn schools in 2019. Photo: A. Leonhardt for BK Reader.

His announcement was met with praise and also criticism. 

“It sure would be nice if Mayor Eric Adams focused less on educational bells and whistles, and more on ensuring city children learn their reading, writing and ’rithmatic,” the NY Post Editorial Board wrote in an opinion piece following the announcement. “[H]alf the DOE high-school grads who move on to CUNY community college need remedial classes their first year, meaning the DOE schools graduated them without teaching basic skills.”

Bernard Addo, the principal of Vista Academy in East New York, supports Adams’ program and has taught mindful breathing at his school since it opened in 2013. In 2019, Adams paid a special visit to Vista Academy to participate in its mindfulness program. 

“I can attest to mindfulness and meditation,” Addo told BK Reader. “At first, there was a lot of aggression, but [students] improved, and they became calmer. It takes away disciplinary problems, and they learn to challenge energy to more positive behaviors.”

According to the NYS Education Department, Vista Academy has a student attendance rate of 94% and chronic absenteeism of 16.7%, which is lower than other NYC schools.

John Snyder teaching yoga. Photo: Provided/DOE.

John Snyder, an English language and yoga teacher at JHS 062 Ditmas in Kensington, teaches breathing and stretching techniques to his students so they can regulate their nervous systems and feel present. 

Snyder claims behavioral issues have declined since he introduced his lessons two years ago and scores have gone up. According to the NYS Education Department, two-thirds of JHS 062 students read at grade level, although their math proficiency is much lower. 

“The critics are wrong, or I wouldn’t be here,” Snyder said. “I tell the students when things feel volatile, remember to do three breaths.”

Anne Desmond, the co-founder of Bent on Learning, a local program that brings yoga to public schools citywide, said the mindfulness program is sorely needed. 

“There’s a lot of research now that proves how breath works, benefits the nervous system, physiologically calms your nervous system,” Desmond said. “You have to be well in order to learn. When you calm down, you’re going to realize for the first time what you’re thinking and feeling. I think having this two-to-five program everyday is just going to shift the whole environment and culture. It just makes health and well-being the culture of the school.” 

The first day of school this year will be on Sept. 7. 

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Original MasterChef Australia winner Julie Goodwin. Photo / Stephen Barker

Inaugural Masterchef winner Julie Goodwin has lifted the lid on the personal price she paid for her sudden rise to fame, revealing she’s been hospitalised multiple times for mental health reasons.

Goodwin, who won the first ever season of Masterchef in 2009, was in New Zealand last week for the Auckland Food Show.

As one of Australia’s most beloved celebrities, she shocked the nation when in 2020 she revealed she’d been admitted to hospital following what she describes as a nervous breakdown.

“Anxiety was a tremendous part of my life. I was constantly in a state of fear. I had severe depression and I felt dread all of the time without quite knowing why,” she told Newstalk ZB’s Real Life with John Cowan on Sunday night.

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“I just kept ignoring all the symptoms before my brain went, ‘well if you’re not going to listen to me, I’ll send it out to your body’. I became physically really sick as well – I had sores on my scalp, shaky hands, ulcerated mouth, dizziness.”

Goodwin is in the process of writing a memoir about her mental health battle, and says looking back at her packed schedule over the last few years for research has been an eye-opening experience.

In the years after winning Masterchef, a number of career opportunities presented themselves for Goodwin. She started running a cooking school, working as a radio host, presenting on TV, and writing books, columns and recipes.

She said balancing all her commitments became overwhelming.

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Advertise with NZME.Julie is ecstatic to have won the title of Australia’s first MasterChef. Photo / Masterchef

“When I go back to my calendar over the last few years, I think anyone could look at that and see that there’s a crash coming, because there is just too much,” she told Cowan.

“Breakfast radio takes its toll. You have to go to bed at 8pm and get up at 4am, and then I would go from there to my cooking school, which would often take me past the optimum bedtime, and that was every weekend as well. So I was working seven days a week, and they were not eight-hour days.

“There was a fear that if I said no to opportunities, everything would go away. There’s that sense of obligation. And after a while, the decisions were taken away from me because I had a nervous breakdown.”

Before entering Masterchef, Goodwin was a Christian youth worker, and her faith remains an integral part of her life. But she says she was in such a deep hole during that tough period of her life that she found God “hard to find”.

“God went missing, joy went missing. It was a terrible time. I believe with all my heart in the power of gratitude and in finding the good in things and people, and I knew that’s what I had to do – but I couldn’t do it.”

Now, Goodwin is in a much better place. She swims, meditates and sees a psychologist regularly, makes sure to get eight hours sleep, eats well and doesn’t drink. She’s also on medication and now assesses everything through the lens of ‘does this fill my cup, or does it empty me?’

Julie Goodwin guest judge in Masterchef Australia. Photo / Supplied

She says it’s been a long journey that continues to this day.

“I’ve been hospitalised multiple times. It’s not a straight line from A to B, from sickness to health – it’s a process that requires a lot of commitment. I have those things in place every day that I have to do every day to keep well.”

Real Life is a weekly interview show where John Cowan speaks with prominent guests about their life, upbringing, and the way they see the world. Tune in Sundays from 7:30pm on Newstalk ZB.

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Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek talks wih local leaders in Hermiston, Ore., in this file photo from May 2023. She signaled on Friday she plans to veto two policy bills and several budget items.

Antonio Sierra / OPB

After five decades, Oregon’s ban on self-serve gas is about to come to a close.

Gov. Tina Kotek on Friday gave notice that she plans to veto two bills and four budget items passed by lawmakers in the frenetic final days of this year’s legislative session.

Most notably, the governor’s veto pen is targeting $600,000 that would fund studies into the sex trade and decriminalizing prostitution. Those expenditures had turned heads in both parties.

Kotek is also signaling she’ll block bills that would create a task force to look into creating a public bank, a goal of some of the most progressive members of her party, and to study a tax credit that would encourage preserving historic properties.

Many Oregonians will be just as interested in what’s not on the list: a proposal that will allow drivers in every corner of the state to pump their own gas rather than relying on attendants.

FILE: An attendant pumps gas at a station in Portland, Ore., in 2015. An Oregon law passed nearly seven decades ago banned drivers from pumping their own gas, but now that’s changing.

Don Ryan / AP

Self-serve enthusiasts shouldn’t rush to the pump just yet, though. House Bill 2426, which will end Oregon’s status alongside New Jersey as the only states that still ban many drivers from fueling up on their own, won’t go into effect until Kotek signs it or the governor allows it to pass unsigned. Kotek merely signaled Friday that she will not block the policy from going into law.

Not every bill was so fortunate. Under the state constitution, Kotek has until Aug. 4 to veto bills passed in the final days of session. But the governor is required to serve notice of a possible veto at least five business days ahead of time, making Friday her final day to do so.

The items Kotek has singled out for possible veto include:

• Money to study decriminalizing prostitution. House Bill 5506, a wide-ranging spending document, contained two separate expenditures that would fund studies into the sex trade: $100,000 to the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission and $500,000 to Oregon Health and Science University. Kotek said she might nix both, believing the studies should be privately funded. The possible spending had become a target of Republican lawmakers when it came to light toward the end of session. “This is not OK,” Senate Republican Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend, said in a text message to Sen. Kathleen Taylor, D-Portland on June 19.
• Two other study bills. House Bill 2079 would mandate the study of a tax credit for preserving historic property in Oregon. Kotek says that can be accomplished another way. House Bill 2763 would create a task force to study creating a state-owned bank.
• Salem streetcars. Kotek says she’s planning to block $250,000 in state money that would help the city’s Cherriots transit system look into the feasibility of building a streetcar service. That’s “not a top priority,” Kotek said.
• Money for career and technical education. Kotek often talks of the importance of training up the state’s workforce. But the governor says she might ax $1 million to the Willamette Career Academy over concerns the money is not being distributed through the appropriate channels.
• Remove an emergency clause from Senate Bill 1095. The clause would have rejiggered the membership of some state boards. That means the bill would take effect next year rather than upon passage.

While supporters of the items Kotek plans to block will be disappointed, few garnered the interest of the gas pumping bill.

Oregon already allows drivers in some rural areas to pump their own gas, but motorists in densely populated parts of the state still must wait for an attendant. HB 2426 will allow gas stations to designate up to half of their pumps as self-serve, while reserving the remainder for people opting to have their tanks topped up for them. Stations may not charge different amounts for fuel depending on which kind of pump a driver chooses.

Opponents of the policy change worry it will cost Oregonians jobs, and will make it more difficult for people with disabilities to fill up. They say the bill could be flouted by gas stations that might cease employing attendants at all, not fearing enforcement from the state fire marshal. Potential penalties wouldn’t even kick in until March.

Others simply like the fact that Oregon has held onto the quaint practice while nearly every other state allows drivers to pump their own gas.

Station owners supported the bill, arguing they are already having trouble finding people to work as attendants. Polling from 2021 suggested nearly two-thirds of Oregonians supported the addition of self-serve pumps.

The issue has so many impassioned partisans that, when Kotek asked for public feedback on whether she should sign the bill in late June, her inbox was soon brimming with opinions.

“I think we’ve received over 5,000 emails on that,” the governor told reporters Thursday.

But Kotek has been cryptic about her own thinking on the matter. “I grew up in a place where I pumped gas,” she said in June. “I’ve lived here for a long time.”

Asked this week why she would have any misgivings about signing the bill when so many other states have embraced the practice, the governor responded: “‘Just because ‘everybody else does it’ is not a good argument.”

The mystery surrounding her thinking spurred a fresh round of activity from backers of HB 2426, who issued a press release Thursday quoting lawmakers in both parties.

“We heard from Oregon drivers throughout the session who want the freedom to choose whether they pump their own gas or not,” state Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis, R-Albany, said in the release. “We also heard from small businesses who need relief from the ongoing labor shortage.”

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