Your diet affects everything in your body, including energy, serotonin production, and a slew of non-depression related things which might exacerbate your moods.

For some, shortened days and fewer hours of sunshine mean less energy, loss of appetite, and feelings of despair or hopelessness. “Seasonal depression, or seasonal affective disorder (SAD), is a type of depression that’s related to a change in seasons.

Suicide Awareness week will be observed September 4th-10^th this year with the goal of raising awareness about suicide and support both for those who struggle with suicidal ideation and those grieving the death of a loved one from suicide. 

Opening up about mental health issues can be a scary thing; it requires showing vulnerability to other people who might react unexpectedly. However, it becomes easier for someone to be honest about their issues when a friend or family member reaches out and checks in on them.

Each year millions of Americans face the reality of living with a mental illness. During May, JCFS Chicago joins the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) in the national movement to raise awareness about mental health.

It is important, as we emerge from the pandemic (fingers crossed), that mental health and substance use treatment providers determine whether the needs of trauma-affected clients are being met. The goal is to offer treatment services that are sensitive to trauma-affected clients, while also recognizing we could cause trauma if we were not mindful of proper practices and procedures.

We applaud UIC Associate Professor Kristin Berg and the Behavioral Health Stratified Treatment (BEST project) for seeking to better understand the needs of young people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We at JCFS Chicago share the project’s goals of early identification and treatment of mental health challenges to improve health and vocational trajectories across the life.

This is still hard. And we wish it weren’t. We wish we were wistful about 2021 coming to an end. 
We wish the pandemic was definitively coming to an end. And so, as we look ahead to 2022, let’s begin to imagine how we will recover from this crisis.

When describing how JVS Career Services can help, JVS Career Services Director, Jeff Blumenfeld explains, “Ari came to us confused about his career path. After a number of one-on-one career counseling sessions, he was able to move forward and land a good job.”

The ongoing stress, fear, grief, isolation and uncertainty created by the pandemic can wear anyone down, but many teens have had an especially tough time coping emotionally. In a recent WebMD poll, researchers found that 46% of 977 parents of teens said their child has shown signs of a new or worsening mental health condition since the start of the pandemic.