Gun Violence & Mental Health

Posted on Saturday February 23, 2013 by Jacob Campbell.

A graphic I created in Adobe Photoshop as a graphic thinking about all of the debate regarding mental health treatment and the gun control.

Over the last few years and especially over the last couple of months since the Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting both mental health and gun violence have been all over the news, radio, and political discussion. It’s an immensely difficult and polarizing topic that is flooding every source of media. I figured I should add to it a little bit as I feel there is some misperceptions, especially regarding the mental health aspect.

One media source I find myself waiting expectantly to hear from every week and see what their latest episode is Freakonomics Podcast and have written about about before. I truly believe they put forth in-depth and thoughtful commentary and ideas, I must say I disagree with some of the comments that offhandedly given by Steven Levett in their episode How to Think About Guns: A New Freakonomics Radio Podcast. He describes that one way he would deal with these types of mass shootings is maybe to bring back more hospitalizations for mentally ill persons. While I agree that in some cases long-term hospitalization is something that would be beneficial for some of our chronically mentally ill citizens, it is for different reasons.

I have a number of clients currently who I believe could benefit from long-term hospitalization due to being gravely disabled. This is not so much based on my concerns that they will be violent towards others (or even necessarily themselves which is, in my experience, the more prominent reason that people are involuntarily hospitalized in this area). More so it is that they lack the basic comprehension and understanding to function in regular life (i.e. have a job, have an apartment, buy food… etc) because of the severity of their disability and oftentimes psychosis. That being said, belief that locking up more mentally ill persons would help keep us safer is very off base. Research shows that statistically mentally ill persons are no more likely to be violent then persons who do not have mental health conditions. The New York Times even put out an article, titled, In Gun Debate, a Misguided Focus on Mental Illness which discusses this. If your interested, I could link in the future to more peer reviewed journal articles which look at the correlation of violence and mental illness.

I do agree that topics that are being discussed about gun violence and what politicians are proposing to help curb this violence are as the saying goes “a day late and a dollar short” although this is a vast understatement. I think if we really want to address gun violence and mental health, we should be finding ways of curbing suicide rates which make up the vast majority of gun violence and could be effectively changed in our country more so then the mass murders we are seeing on the rise.

New and Fun Functionality

Posted on Sunday January 27, 2013 by Jacob Campbell.

I’ve always been a little bit of a geek. That’s actually a little bit of why I’ve created this website in the first place… so that I could show off my geekyness a little bit. More than just knowing how to use computers at a slightly higher proficiency than average, I love all things technology. Every morning, I find myself getting a hot cup of coffee, sitting outside in the cold with my iPad reading the news and having a cigarette (I know it’s bad for my health, but I do truly love those moments). I use Google News you can even read the blog post I wrote about it a couple of years ago, Now You Can Read What I’m Reading.

With my commute having gotten longer, I’ve also been listening to Podcasts to take up some of the time. I’ve written a couple of articles about the Freakonomics Podcastthat I’ve been listening to. I’ve added to my collection of digital media to subscribe to, and have started also listening to the Life Hacker Podcast which doesn’t have exactly as great of production quality as the Freakonomics Podcast does, but it does have some great content.

One cool thing that I have started to implement due to listening to LifeHacker is using a really cool service called IFTTT (i.e. If This Than That). It’s a really neat service which automates a number of activities that we do online. For example, now, whenever I change my profile picture on my Facebook Account it will change my profile picture in my @campjacob Twitter Account. Because my Twitter account has been pretty left out of the loop in things and left under appreciated, it seems like a pretty cool service and I don’t have to do anything. There are tons of really cool automated activities you can have it do. These include anything from notifying you via SMS if there the CDC updates a zombie outbreak to a really useful service I am also using that makes when I post on my Instagram Account that it also posts the picture on Twitter with the image uploaded to Twitter so it actually shows up in my profile and not just the link which is what has been happening recently. I’m trying out a new feature which will hopefully post every one time I post a new blog post or image post or resources post it will also share that with my various social networking sites. All in all, I think it pays a little bit to be a bit of a geek.

Serving in the Cold, PDC Annual Community Survey

Posted on Sunday January 20, 2013 by Jacob Campbell.

I was doing a Google Image Search, how any of my good Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator design projects start. I’m writing an post for my blog, Serving in the Cold, PDC Annual Community Survey, about my recent experience canvassing East Pasco with a Survey for the Pasco Discovery Coalition (Google Site’s Page looking for inspiration. I cam across the The Quirky Community Survey photo. While this picture is nowhere near the same. I had Minnie take a couple of pictures of me pretending to be asking interviewing questions. I took that photo and followed How to Create Vintage Photo Effect Photoshop Tutorial. I followed it mostly exactly the same, but of course replacing my own image. I also made some changes to how the rendered lighting effects, and adding a little bit of a border to the image. It was a pretty simple tutorial, involving using some layer’s with color and blending options. As normal, you can download the Jacob the Great and Vintage Survey Interviewer Photoshop File so you can see more of what I did and help with your own design project.

I’m very thankful for all of the support that we got to complete some of the Pasco Discovery Coalition’s Annual Community Survey. We had people from the Coalition itself and some people from F.I.R.M.E. along with Jesse’s church members

I’m assuming that I will post something after we have more of the survey’s back and after the data analysis has been completed in my Resources Section, but I wanted to post that the data collection we did today went really well. A group of about 13 of us went around the Lakeview Mobile Home Park in Pasco and were able to reach almost all of the trailers there. People seemed to be very receptive and we might have even found more coalition members to participation in our monthly meetings. It was cold, but everybody was a trooper and had great attitudes. We were hoping to do more survey’s of East Pasco but ran into problems with not having a large enough volunteer base and enough time.

Birth Announcements and the Economics of Children

Posted on Monday January 7, 2013 by Jacob Campbell.

Official Birth Announcement

You might be getting a postcard in the mail soon, as an official announcement of Mateo Rodman Campbell VSP’s birth. If you don’t, I’m sorry, and we don’t mean any office to you what so ever. We have a lot of friends and family and it is hard to get the announcement out to everybody. I’m pretty proud of the work I did in creating the announcement. It took me a couple of tries and a lot of time thinking and deciding exactly what to do. My mom said that we’d better be careful, so somebody might call CPS on us (the card has little Mateo inside the oven, see below). Don’t worry he was completely safe the whole time and was even laying on a blanket. Minnie was pretty freaked out though. Below is the front of the postcard announcement. Make sure to also check out the Mateo’s Birth Announcement Postcard Back Version 2 and the version that I didn’t use, Mateo’s Birth Announcement Postcard Front Version 1.

This graphic is a postcard that I created in Adobe Photoshop to announce the birth of my son, Mateo Rodman Campbell V.S.P.. You can read my blog post about the birth, Are You Ready or Not? Proud Father . This postcard, is the second version of two. I like it a lot better then the first version. I spent a long time looking through google images of baby announcements for some inspiration. I was struck by so many really creative ideas people had. I still didn’t know what I wanted to do. After a little while, I was struck with a little bit of inspiration of my own. I didn’t see anything like this, but I’m sure I’m not the first to think of putting my baby in the oven. Minnie was super worried (don’t worry, the oven wasn’t on… but she was still freaking out. We did a photo shoot with little Mateo in various pots and pans on the oven too, maybe I’ll load them on Facebook at some point, but I haven’t yet. It’s pretty simple design. I took a photo and placed it on the right hand side. I blurred out a section behind the text “Baked to Perfection.” The various other portions are texts of different sizes and directions in a type of word cloud.

It was a pretty fun process to go through and make it. Make sure to leave some comments and let me know what you think. Also, if you don’t receive one in the next week or so, and feel really left out make sure to let us know and we will send you one (please note that we haven’t even mailed them yet).

The CEO Gene

It always seems like I live a life of great serendipity. The other day, I’m still going through the old Freakonomics podcasts. The two next ones were all about children / parenthood. The first one I listened to, was especially fitting as I am still tinkering around with the idea of starting my own business. It was tilted The Church of Scionology or listen to the Podcast and hear great voice over repeating “Scion.” over and over. I always love learning new words, and with my new addition to the family, really like this word.

sci·on /ˈsīən/ Noun

A young shoot or twig of a plant, esp. one cut for grafting or rooting.

A descendant of a notable family.

They discuss a number of really interesting topics, and it is helpful that the two main companies they look into are related to beer (yes, Steven Dubner knows how to keep my attention). They get into discussion about the frequency in which companies that pass on their family buisness to a family member continue to succeed and that there really doesn’t appear to be a “CEO Gene.” I guess I must agree, for my little Mateo, with the Buffet Rule (both the one in the media recently and discussed on the podcast). I want my son to do what ever makes him happy and that he wants to do. That he would find his passion and follow after that. The other podcast that I listened to was The Economist’s Guide to Parenting. Another great story that you should take time to listen to.

Are You Ready or Not? Proud Father

Posted on Friday December 28, 2012 by Jacob Campbell.

A photo of Minnie at Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland and our baby Mateo Rodman Campbell, VSP.

We just wanted to update everybody, and let you all know that Minnie and I just had our baby. Minnie had gone in to her regular weekly check up with her doctor. Our pregnancy has been high risk due to the baby only having two arteries in the umbilical cord. While she was there doing the ultra sound they said that during her BBP testing only barely passed. She was put on a heart monitor and they said that he had “decels.” Basically that his heart beat was slowing down.

They sent her to Kadlec Regional Hospital to follow up. I left work at about 5 and headed that way to. by 5:45 she had been seen by the doctor and they told her that they were going to preform a C-Section. At 6:43 PM in Richland Washington on 12/27/12 “Mateo Rodman Campbell VSP” was born weighing 7 pounds 9.6 ounces and 20 inches. He was born three and half weeks early from our due date. He is healthy and we will be hanging out in the Hospital for the next couple of days. I’m sure I will write more with lots of cute little stories to tell and pictures to share.

Similarities of Bounty Hunters and Mental Health Case Managers

Posted on Tuesday December 18, 2012 by Jacob Campbell.

Are mental health case managers like bounty hunters? It is a question in I ask in my blog post Similarities of Bounty Hunters and Mental Health Case Managers . In thinking about this blog post, it reminded me of the classic bounty hunter, Boba Fett from the original Star War’s Movies. I found the coloring page at Star Wars Forum. I embedded it into Adobe Illustrator and had it trace it and expand the tracing. I turned it into a live paint group and colored it in. The text states “Are Mental Health Case Managers Like Bounty Hunters?”

With my drive from Prosser Washington to Pasco twice a day, I’ve been listening to the Freakonomics Podcast (something that you should check out if you haven’t already… it will make you feel smarter). It’s been really interesting, I’m I’ve had a lot of things that I’ve thought about writing about, but just haven’t made time to write about yet. So you get my random thought of the day. The episode I was listening to was titled To Catch a Fugitive which is all about the economics of bounty hunters. As always, it was a well put together episode that was informative. They discussed the efficacy and some of the tactics that bounty hunters use.

As I was listening to the podcast, I found myself wondering if I could be a bounty hunter. That led to thoughts of how mental health case managers (i.e. my current position) are like bounty hunters. The most obvious similarity is sometimes the general tasks required. Frequently I find myself trying to track down clients and engage with them. This might mean calling collaterals, going by their homes or places that they hang out, and trying to get them to re-engage in services. This especially true when they have an appointment with our psychiatrist and they haven’t responded to say that they would show for their scheduled appointment.

They discussed that a good bounty hunter will build relationships with police and the community members. This also is true for case managers. I feel like an important part of my job is being the face of Tri-Cities Community Health in the community, building relationships, networking to be better able to connect clients to resources, and everything in the community.

I find myself, as I am trying to connect people to resources in the community (especially at DSHS), waiting around a lot. This means I need to find ways to be industrious (i.e. making phone calls as I drive with my bluetooth, something else discussed that bounty hunters do) and that much of my job is boring. In the podcast I believe that Bob Burton said that bounty hunting is 90% work and 10% adrenaline. I guess on this point, while I may not be kicking doors down or handcuffing people, there is that 10% that is super exciting and engaging and that reminds me of why I do what I do.

Are You Pondering What I’m Pondering Presentation

Posted on Thursday November 22, 2012 by Jacob Campbell.

Recently at work, I created a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation for a training I did during one of our staff meetings. It is about affecting environmental change and empowerment theory. You can check out the tag Are You Pondering What I’m Pondering Presentation for all of the material that I uploaded regarding this presentation. It was really fun to put together, especially due to the fact that I used the theme of Pinky and the Brain. During my presentation, I even featured the cartoon introduction copied off of YouTube. You can see it below and linked at Pinky and The Brain Intro on YouTube. I created my own background title slide using some coloring page’s I found online (I lost the links to them).

This is the background that I used for the Microsoft PowerPoint Presentation I created for my my Empowerment Theory Presentation I created.

You can find my presentation: Empowerment Theory Presentation and the hand out that I gave my co-workers Empowerment Theory Presentation Handout

Follow Me to Freedom, Leadership / Followership and Shane Claiborn and John Perkins

Posted on Sunday November 18, 2012 by Jacob Campbell.

Come along as we live out this conversation … there are many obstacles—so much suffering, poverty and violence. But our God is familiar with suffering. Our God can swallow up armies and pour out bread from the heavens. Wall Street may fail us, but the God who takes care of the lilies and the sparrows will never let us down. Our Savior has stared evil in the face and overcome it with love. And now we are invited to join the triumph of the cross … and to lead others on the narrow, rugged road to freedom. – From the back cover of the book

The cover for the Audiobook Version of Shane Claiborn and John Perkins book Follow Me To Freedom: Leading as Ordinary Radicals ( Google Books || Amazon ). I uploaded it for my blog post Follow Me to Freedom, Leadership / Followership and Shane Claiborn and John Perkins one of my Book Reviews.

I have really been inspired and encouraged by Shane Claiborn, and you can read my other book review A Look into Joining the Irresistible Revolution. While, I am somewhat familiar with Shane and the Simple Way (the intentional community Shane is involved with), I had not heard of John Perkins before. Interestingly enough, Jamie, my co-worker who lent me a copy of this audio book does know him.

As I am living a considerable distance from work, read my blog post When it Rains it Pours for some more information surrounding my move to Prosser, I was able to listen to the whole book in just a little over a week. During my car ride, it monopolized my time, not even leaving very much space for my normally appreciated National Public Radio listening Fervor. I came to find out later about the week (I believe that’s how long she said, but it might have been considerably longer) that spent with John Perkins. She talked about how her time spent with John challenged her perspectives on life and even influenced her later decision to move into the impoverished and underserved community of East Pasco. I also found out from her that he is an 82 year old advocate.

I didn’t read the book itself, so I am not sure how it flowed in its conversational format, but it seemed perfect for the audio format. It’s really structured as more of a conversation between Shane and John and goes back and forth between the two. I’m actually curious how the book displays the differences in voices that were so easily displayed by the portraying authors’ voices.

There were a number of really emboldening stories, [deep thoughts][18], topics that are import to me (community, leadership, how to follow, politics, etc.). Many of the topics addressed came back to relationship and community and how to do community development. The organization, Christian Community Development Association, came up a number of times. It really spoke to me in my position as the chairperson of the Pasco Discovery Coalition. Some of the methods of organizing these movements, the foundational inclusion of what they call indigenous leaders were all such promising topics. Now it will be trying to figure out how to help guide our coalition in that direction.

I would highly recommend this book, especially in its audio book format for any reader.