Mindscape – Youth mental health resources for teens, parents, educators, and caregivers. Harvard Health
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Community Insurance’s Nancy Elam earns national recognition for health coverage enrollments – White River Now
Nancy Elam (pictured) of Community Insurance has been named an Elite member of the 2025 Marketplace Circle of Champions by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a recognition awarded to agents and brokers who help enroll at least 100 consumers in qualified health coverage during the open enrollment period.
According to a release from First Community Bank, Elam’s achievement places her among a select group of Marketplace-registered insurance professionals nationwide who play a key role in expanding access to affordable health care.
“Nancy’s recognition as an Elite member of the Marketplace Circle of Champions is a direct reflection of her unwavering commitment to the people she serves,” said Anthony Clark, president of Community Insurance. “Her dedication, knowledge, and compassion make a meaningful difference in the lives of her clients.”
The Marketplace Circle of Champions program was established by CMS to acknowledge the efforts of agents and brokers who assist consumers in navigating the federal Health Insurance Marketplace. While the standard Circle of Champions distinction is given to those who enroll at least 20 consumers, the Elite status is reserved for those who exceed 100 enrollments.
“We thank Nancy Elam with Community Insurance for her dedication to providing exceptional service and helping consumers access coverage,” said Peter Nelson, deputy administrator and director at CMS. “Agents and brokers are important partners to CMS in our shared goal of helping expand access to coverage across the nation.”
Elam is based in Batesville and continues to assist individuals with applying for and understanding their health insurance options. Consumers seeking help with Marketplace coverage can contact her at 870-793-9876.
Have a news tip or event to promote? Email White River Now at news@whiterivernow.com. Be sure to like and follow us on Facebook and Twitter. And don’t forget to download the White River Now mobile app from the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store.
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Health Matters with TSET: A Psychiatrist Talks about Mental Health – News 9
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Monday, May 19th 2025, 11:21 am
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. In today’s Health Matters with TSET, Amy Slanchik sits down with a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at Parkside Psychiatric Hospital & Clinic to ask a few questions.
AMY: Dr. Sharp, what is the number one issue you and your colleagues here at Parkside see every day, and what are you doing to combat it?
Dr. Matthew Sharp, Parkside Director of Medical Education: “I would say that the number one thing that we struggle with, and that our kids struggle with, is feelings of anxiety and depression. This most likely happens in adolescence and teenage years, because that’s when we hit puberty and our adult brain kicks on. And so how we work and combat those things is we use a combination of medication and therapy, or just even therapy alone, where the medication can help ease our symptoms so we can participate in the therapeutic aspect of it, where all anxiety and depression has cognitive lies, where we tell ourselves things that are not true. We learn how to combat that. And then another part of therapy, too, is a behavioral aspect, where we learn to start to do more positive behaviors like walking, meditating [and] being more social with people that we care about.
AMY: The American Psychiatric Association says adults are feeling more and more anxious, year after year. Are you seeing that here at Parkside and what tools can you give people to help address that?
Dr. Sharp: “We see lots of that. We do focus on more, like, youth, and not as much as the adult population. We do go up to age 30. But, we do live in a more stressful world and a more stressful society. So we try to work with those adults, again, that still have those same cognitive concerns to be more present, to be more living in the moment, and not have so many thoughts about the past or the future, that we can’t change.”
AMY: May is Mental Health Awareness Month. What’s your message to Oklahomans?
Dr. Sharp: “That all of us have anxiety and depression. All of us have mental health. It may not be at the level that you need professional help, but we all have feelings and we can all share and work with each other to lean on those things. Because at the end of the day we are social, emotional creatures. And there’s no such thing as a self-made man. No such thing as an independent person. We are always interdependent on our interpersonal relationships.”
Amy Slanchik is a proud University of Oklahoma graduate with a passion for storytelling. She joined the News On 6 team in May of 2016 after spending almost two years in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
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Brian Thompson: Who is UnitedHealthcare CEO shot dead in New York? – BBC
Brian Thompson, the US healthcare insurance chief executive who was gunned down in Manhattan, had been receiving threats relating to medical "coverage", according to his widow.
Mr Thompson was shot in the back by a masked assailant on 4 December as he was walking into a hotel where the company he led was holding an investors' meeting.
Five days later, police charged an Ivy League graduate, Luigi Mangione, with murdering Mr Thompson, after detaining him at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania.
The 26-year-old had a handwritten document expressing "ill will" towards corporate America, say investigators.
"There had been some threats," his wife Paulette Thompson told NBC. "Basically, I don’t know, a lack of [medical] coverage? I don’t know details.
"I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him."
A private funeral for Mr Thompson was held at a Lutheran church near where he had lived in Maple Grove, Minnesota.
A statement issued on behalf of the family last week said: “We are shattered to hear about the senseless killing of our beloved Brian.
"Brian was an incredibly loving, generous, talented man who truly lived life to the fullest and touched so many lives."
The statement added that he was "an incredibly loving father" to his two sons.
Mr Thompson and his wife, Paulette, had been living separately at the time of his death, the Wall Street Journal reported.
UnitedHealth Group said it was "deeply saddened and shocked" by his death.
"Brian was a highly respected colleague and friend to all who worked with him," the company said in statement.
Mr Thompson was named chief executive of UnitedHealthcare – the largest private insurer in the US – in April 2021.
He was paid $10.2m (£8m) last year. He started at the company in 2004, before working his way up.
Before joining UnitedHealthcare, Mr Thompson was a manager at accountancy giant PwC for a number of years, according to his LinkedIn account.
He graduated from the University of Iowa in 1997 with a bachelor's in business administration, it adds.
Mr Thompson had been facing insider trading allegations.
A class-action lawsuit filed in May 2024 alleged that he sold $15m of his UnitedHealth Group shares, knowing that the company was reportedly facing an antitrust investigation by the US Department of Justice.
The City of Hollywood Firefighters’ Pension Fund initiated a complaint against Mr Thompson and other executives, accusing them of failing to tell investors about the investigation before selling more than $117m in company stock.
The lawsuit remains active.
Investigators allege Mr Mangione was motivated to kill Mr Thompson because of anger with US health insurance companies.
His killing ignited a fraught debate about how the US healthcare system operates.
Some Americans, who pay more for healthcare than people in any other country, expressed anger over what they see as unfair treatment by insurance firms.
Mr Mangione faces federal charges of stalking, a firearms offense and murder through the use of a firearm. The Justice Department has said it intends to pursue the death penalty if he's convicted.
He is also facing 11 state charges in New York and four more in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested at a McDonald's.
The former US president has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, his office says.
It was the first government-chartered flight under a programme offering free travel and $1,000 to immigrants in the US illegally.
It would settle a wrongful death suit brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt, who was fatally shot by police while breaching the US Capitol.
Lanez, convicted of shooting Megan Thee Stallion, was stabbed 14 times by a fellow inmate in a California prison.
Statements from both world leaders reveal two very different realities about ending the war in Ukraine.
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NSSEC Begins 2025 Quality Assurance Monitoring In Nigerian Senior Secondary Schools – News Agency of Nigeria
Africa's Media Giant
Africa's Media Giant
By Sani Idris-Abdulrahman
The National Senior Secondary Education Commission (NSSEC) has inaugurated its 2025 Quality Assurance Monitoring and Evaluation exercise for senior secondary schools in Nigeria.
Speaking at the inauguration on Monday at the Federal Government College (FGC), Malali Kaduna, the Executive Secretary (ES) of the commission, Dr Iyela Ajayi, said the initiative aimed to assess and improve the quality of education in secondary schools nationwide.
According to Ajayi, education is not merely a tool for individual advancement, but the cornerstone of a prosperous and equitable society.
He said that President Bola Tinubu’s unwavering commitment to the Nigerian people, recognised the critical role of education in achieving collective aspirations.
According to him, it is a blueprint for a brighter future for a government to prioritise human capital development and empower every citizen with the
knowledge and skills necessary to thrive in the 21st century.
Ajayi explained that the commission, entrusted with the crucial responsibility of shaping the future of the nation’s youth, recognised the paramount importance of quality education.
“We are committed to ensuring that every senior secondary school in the country provides a conducive learning environment that fosters academic excellence, critical thinking, and the development of well-rounded individuals,” he said.
He noted that the commission had since developed the National Minimum Standards for Senior Secondary Education in Nigeria, which served as a benchmark for the operation of all senior secondary schools nationwide.
He recalled that the document was approved at the 68th National Council of Education between Oct.7 and Oct. 10, 2024 and launched by the Minister of Education, Dr Tunji Alausa in February.
“Copies of the minimum standards were distributed to the state delegates at the launching for implementation in the various states.
“The implementation is expected to be done within nine months after which the commission will start the process of enforcement of the minimum standards,” he said.
The ES, therefore, said the exercise was aimed to achieve desired learning outcomes through monitoring and evaluation, identifying strengths and weaknesses, and setting clear benchmarks for accountability and improvement.
“The programme promotes best practices, empowers educators with constructive feedback and support, and enhances their skills to elevate teaching quality and learners’ outcomes,” he said.
Earlier, the Commissioner for Education in the state, Prof. Muhammad Bello, expressed delight that Kaduna State was chosen as the sole state in the federation for the inauguration of the 2025 monitoring exercise.
“This is sincerely a privilege, and it goes a long way to emphasise the fact that Kaduna State remains committed to enhancement of quality education and expansion of access across the state,” he said.
Bello, represented by Director, Kaduna State Schools Quality Assurance Authority (KSSQAA), Prof. Usman Zaria, noted that monitoring and evaluation of schools remained a missing link.
Though he emphasised that the government had continued to invest billions of Naira in the state’s education sector, he, however, noted there had been the missing aspect of monitoring and evaluation of the schools.
“The governor has prioritised education, allocating a significant portion of the budget to it, over 26 per cent in 2024 and even more in 2025”.
Bello assured of the state government’s support for the NSSEC’s initiatives in the state.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that NSSEC toured facilities at the FGC Malali and other selected schools within the state. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Kevin Okunzuwa