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The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

The holiday season brings with it nostalgia, excitement, joy and (sometimes) comfort. Let’s face it, it’s hard not to feel something when the neighborhood is lit up at night. Combine high expectations, with loneliness, stress or grief and it is no longer the most wonderful time of the year. In fact, NAMI reports that 24% of people with mental illness report the holidays make their conditions worse. Now, the holiday blues are different from mental illness, but even short-term mental health problems need to be taken seriously. They can lead to bigger things down the road. With us fresh off of Thanksgiving and the delight (and dysfunction) that can bring, this month we enlisted the help of our friend Richelle Gregory. Richelle is the Director of Community Services at Clinton County Mental Health and Addiction Services. Richelle, what make the holidays a difficult time for so many of us? The holiday season brings on additional stress for many of us. Family commitments, financial pressu...
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Recent posts

Pumpkin Spice Up Someone's Life

The worst part about being an adult has to be the endless cycle of meal planning, shopping, preparing and cleaning up after preparing meals. I had no idea I would spend so much of my adult life thinking about what my family was going to eat. Add in the cost of food and it’s enough to keep you up at night. Did you know Clinton County’s food insecurity rate was almost 12% in 2020? And think about how much the cost of living has changed since then. Nutrition security means having consistent and equitable access to healthy foods, having them available in our stores, having them be affordable to us and knowing what to do with them. If our family is missing even one of those pieces, it can make us food or nutrition insecure. CCHD is working with local partners to try and combat the roadblocks our families face every day while trying to feed their families. In 2022, we created a Food Action Plan with local partners to set goals, priorities, actions and strategies intended to strengthen the l...
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Burning Questions: Fire Prevention & Safety

Social media has us watching real-time updates of structure fires in the North Country – but am I just noticing them now or are they happening more often? Or is it both? According to the U.S. Fire Administration, the number of fires, fire related deaths and money lost due to fires in the U.S. have all increased more than 10% in the past 10 years. The U.S. has already seen 1,403 home fire fatalities just this year. Do you have a plan if you woke up to a fire in your home in? Now in my house, it has been made very clear – I am on my own, my wife will be saving the dogs before me. But that hardly makes us prepared. How will we get out of each room? Where will we meet? This fire safety month, we sat down with Clinton County Emergency Services Director Eric Day. Eric has more than 30 years of experience preventing and fighting fires in the North Country. Eric, it seems like we have had more major structure fires in the past few years than usual. Is that true or are they just more widely ...
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Opioids in the North Country: What it Really Looks Like

 Like many of you, each day articles pop up on my social media feed referring to a ‘crisis’, a ‘problem’ or an ‘epidemic’ surrounding the use of opioids. But is what I see portrayed on the news or social media really what is happening here where I live? It’s common for us North Country folk to see statistics from New York City, Buffalo or Rochester referred to as ‘New York’ – but where we live is so different than those cities, it makes it hard to gauge how serious it really is. This month, we have enlisted the help of Carrie Coryer to help us better understand what this problem looks like in our community, and more importantly, what we can do to help. Carrie is the Harm Reduction Program Manager for the Alliance for Positive Health and works with individuals struggling with addiction each day to help guide them through the recovery process and break down the barriers they may have to achieve that success.  Carrie, growing up here I have always heard that drugs were a probl...
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Better than any 'udder' milk

When preparing for a new family addition, everyone seems to have a different opinion on what style, technique or product is best . But what most can agree on is any amount of chest/breastfeeding (no matter how much) is beneficial. Mother nature has gifted us the perfect food for our babies. Chest/breastmilk contains just the right amount of nutrients. It is also gentle on your baby's developing stomach, intestines, and other body systems. But is chest/breastfeeding just another ‘motherly instinct’ my body is going to know how to do post-partum? That’s where Mallory comes in. She has worked with chest/breastfeeding moms for more than six years, is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), and holds the distinguished role of chest/breastfeeding mom. To help celebrate World Breastfeeding Week, we sat down with Mallory to help new parents navigate chest/breastfeeding and see why it is better than any ‘udder’ milk. Mallory, how soon after welcoming a new baby ca...
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Growing Pains

Being a new parent is an exciting and scary time. Somehow, they allowed you to leave the hospital with this baby and you aren’t sure you are ready to be alone with it. Goal #1 – keep baby alive. To do that, there are so many things to know and do; it’s easy to get overwhelmed. As your baby grows, it is important they meet certain developmental milestones – but what are they exactly and how do you know if they are meeting them? Many new parents assume “someone will tell me if there is a concern” but you know your baby best, trust your gut. When Clinton County children aren’t able to meet their developmental milestones they can be referred to the Early Intervention Program or the Preschool Special Education Program . They provide services that assist in the growth and development of eligible children and their families. To help navigate all things development and how to best help your child meet their milestones, we have enlisted the help of Alexis Grennan. Alexis is a Children’s Servi...
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That bites.

Springtime gives people baby fever, and I’m not talking about the human variety – I’m talking animal babies. Raccoons, chipmunks, squirrels, skunks, and foxes (oh my!). Every year CCHD receives numerous calls from residents who have encountered baby or injured wild animals and want to help. Though intentions are good, doing this increases your risk of rabies exposure. You don’t have to be bitten by an animal to be exposed; it can also happen when the animal’s saliva gets into an open cut, your eyes, nose or mouth. I will admit, they are cute, but when you encounter a wild animal (even if it is sick or injured) the best thing you can do is contact a DEC Wildlife Professional . Don’t touch them, treat them, or give them mouth to mouth (true story). To tell us more about keeping our family safe from the rabies virus , we chatted with Amanda Masten. Amanda is a Senior Public Health Sanitarian in the Environmental Health & Safety Division at CCHD. She has been in charge of coordinating ...
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