Nicola's Churchill Adventure

I met Molly Reed at the suggestion of Deidre – she thought we would get along and she was right. I also wrote an awesome blog about the experience.

Then it got deleted and I lost it all. So I am sulking.

But suffice to say, I spent an hour or so with Molly who is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who works at the Elise Allen High School Clinic in Santa Rosa, California. We had a great chat about the kids she works with, the families, the challenges of working across the health and education sectors, our kids, politics and so on. I wrote all about it. And I will again. Just not now. It’s hot, I’m sulking. I’m gunna get a beer. Meanwhile below are some cool photos from the clinic.

One thing before I go

When I asked Molly about the levels of self harm and suicidality at the school and clinic, she said that it wasn’t really an issue. This surprised me given the level of disadvantage and intergenerational issues that she had told me the majority of the mainly Latino population of students faced. We discussed why we thought that given that she is dealing constantly with distress, anxiety, depression, family discord and all the other things we commonly see in clinics serving young people – why not suicide? What was the protective factor? We don’t definitively know of course, but I think Molly was onto something when she said:

“Maybe it has got to do the with the big Latino family situation. While it does your head in because you have no privacy, there is always someone in your face, you’re being compared to your cousin…it also means that when you stumble there is always someone there to catch you. Always.”

MR 2022