RE: “Nowhere to Stay,” 1/22
In “Nowhere to Stay,” Jennifer Baires provides readers a glimpse of children and their families struggling to navigate Oregon’s broken mental health system. As a consulting registered nurse who works with kids in schools, I am familiar with this struggle. But given my caseload, my time with any one student is short and any sense of moral injury I feel pales in comparison to what my colleagues in education — teachers, counselors, educational assistants and administrators — experience every day.
At one of my schools, a student threatened self-harm. To protect the privacy of all involved, I must necessarily be vague, but this child had experienced profound trauma and was intent on ending their life. School staff did everything they could to convince this student to go to the hospital, but to no avail. Police were called, as was the county’s Crisis Response Team. Finally, an EMS crew from Bend Fire & Rescue responded. With great professionalism and discretion, Bend’s bravest gently removed this child from the classroom.
When a student is transported by ambulance and a legal guardian is not available, a school administrator must accompany them. In this case, the administrator who volunteered did so out of more than professional obligation — she had personal experience. Last year she and her husband took rotating shifts at the emergency department while their own child waited five days for an inpatient psychiatric bed to open. This was a traumatic experience for a child with two loving parents alongside them — but the child she was now accompanying to the hospital had no parents at all.
Despite all the competing demands on this administrator at work and home, she was not going to leave this child to feel abandoned again. Fortunately, this burden did not fall to her alone. Over the next several days, a rotating cast of teachers, counselors, educational assistants and administrators were by their side. While they couldn’t be there at all hours, as loving parents would, they made sure this child knew they were cared for until a bed finally opened on the other side of the Cascades.
But even then, the ordeal won’t end. The administrator recounted in a debriefing the many challenges she faced bringing her own child home, including the delay in discharge because no local psychiatrists were willing to take the school district’s health insurance. That delay prevented a bed from opening to another child waiting in an emergency department somewhere in the state.
I share this story (with permission from the administrator whose story it is to tell) to highlight the ripple effects of Oregon’s failure to address our child mental health crisis. When we lack the resources to provide care to children in need — when legislators fail over and over to adequately fund our education system, our foster care system and our mental health system — it’s not only the children and their families who suffer. It’s an entire community.
—Oliver Tatom, RN
Traditions and Cultural Norms Should Not Justify Violence and Abuse
The news outlets KTVZ and Central Oregon Daily, both sponsors of local rodeos, have reported that the Sisters Rodeo is experiencing an increase in ticket demand to witness what is, in reality, publicly sanctioned animal abuse. While traditions are often celebrated, they should never serve as a justification for violence and cruelty.
Terrified animals are subjected to relentless abuse — chased, roped and slammed to the ground — enduring injuries that are frequently severe and, in some cases, fatal. Pain-inducing tools such as electric prods and metal spurs are used to provoke unnaturally dramatic bucking behaviors, often leading to injury. The suffering doesn’t end in the arena; the animals face grueling travel conditions and a glaring lack of legal protections, further compounding their misery.
It’s time to challenge and change these outdated practices. Let’s replace traditions rooted in cruelty with ones built on respect and compassion. Join us in standing against the inherent animal abuse of rodeos and advocate for a more humane Central Oregon. Visit Central Oregon Partners for Animal Kindness at copak.org to take action and help create a better future for all animals.
—LM Cummings
Letter of
the Week:
Rodeos are certainly an American institution and a staple of life in many parts of Oregon. But as Dylan said in ’64, “The Times They Are A-Changin'” — thanks for sharing your thoughts, LM.
—Chris Young
This article appears in The Source Weekly January 30, 2025.
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Thanks, Oliver❣️ Stories like this are just what we need to tell in our community and to our government representatives. They are more empathy-producing than are statistics. It’s something all of us can do to support our country and the best functioning of its programs to help people. We all can and need to be involved and leave a healthy community and country to those who follow us.