FROM PAGE ONE
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2021
Teens:
Continued from Page A1
Erick Peterson/Hermiston Herald
From left, Carolina Delgado, Amy Ashton-Williams, Luis Ibarra and Kathleen Pollard of the
Oregon Washington Health Network pose for a photo Oct. 6, 2021, in the network’s new
drop-in peer center in Hermiston.
Openings:
Continued from Page A1
with OWhN, as she is try-
ing to reduce emergency
department visits by redi-
recting people to the peer
centers, where they are
more properly served.
Shannon Carslay, recov-
ery mentor, works out of
the Pendleton center. In
the past month, working in
Pendleton, he has been able
to help people by relating
to addicted individuals. By
sharing his own story, he
gets them to open up about
their situations. Then, he
fi nds help for them.
“I’ve been through a lot
of what our clients have
been through,” he said.
And he off ers emotional
support, while also direct-
ing clients to medical, psy-
chological and even fi nan-
cial aid.
Valentin
Palomares,
recovery
mentor,
is
working out of the Mil-
ton-Freewater center. He
has spent the past month
in training, studying to
become certifi ed and then
shadowing other mentors.
“I’m really excited
about this,” Palomares
said. “I, myself, have not
only dealt with drug and
alcohol, but with other
issues.”
He said he thinks peo-
ple like him have been
LOCATIONS AND HOURS OF
OPERATION
The Hermiston Center is at 165 S.W. Third St., Hermiston.
The Pendleton Center is at 200 S.E. Hailey Ave., Suite
105/106, Pendleton.
The Milton Center is at 410 N. Main St., Milton-Freewater.
Hours of operation for Hermiston and Milton-Freewater
centers are Monday to Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Pendleton center is open Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to
5 p.m.
People may walk in and receive help during these hours,
without paying a fee and without notice. Once the cen-
ters become more established in the community, hours
will be extended, managers said.
neglected, “not by the city,
but by the culture.” He
said Hispanic people fi nd
it diffi cult to ask for help
and he hopes, as a His-
panic man, he can bring
services to others without
compromising their place
in their culture.
Another peer mentor,
Mariah Wright, also shares
her experiences to help
other struggling addicts.
She said she is a recover-
ing addict and has been “in
and out of addiction for 10
years.” She was homeless
for fi ve years. For three of
those years, she was home-
less with her daughter.
“It was really hard,”
she said. “For the longest
time, I couldn’t put any-
thing before the drugs. I
always put the drugs fi rst.
So I understand the trou-
ble; I understand how hard
the drugs can be.”
Wright went to prison,
and that is where she
changed her life. Released
from prison, she is now
dedicated to helping others
in Umatilla County.
“This is a passion for
me,” she said. “I want peo-
ple to get the experience
with recovery that I have.”
She is the niece of East
Oregonian news editor Phil
Wright.
Kori Hibbard, a home
visiting nurse with the Uma-
tilla County Nurse-Family
Partnership program, also
attended the event.
“I feel this is going to
be a great resource for the
clients I serve,” she said.
“I serve fi rst-time moms
and their babies, and I’m
with them until their baby
turns two. Some of my
moms struggle with addic-
tion and have a history
of addiction.”
enjoys the connection she
feels to her friends and fam-
ily, but said she feels worse
about herself while watch-
ing attractive people on Tik-
Tok and other platforms.
Montez lamented that
staying on social media is
“just a thing that kids do
nowadays.” Other students
don’t typically talk about
how the apps are aff ecting
their mental health. She said
she thinks she could quit if
she wanted to, but it would
be diffi cult. That’s where all
her friends are.
“I would really love and
enjoy life without social
media,” she said.
Maddie Stuvland, a coun-
selor at Pendleton High
School who meets with the
school’s junior and fresh-
man class, said social media
has increasingly become a
regular part of daily discus-
sions with the students she
sees. She said her students
often are surprised when
she points out social media
might be having a nega-
tive eff ect on their mental
well-being.
“I think they’re a bit
shocked,” she said. “They’re
not aware that it’s aff ecting
their mental health. There
really isn’t anything out
there that informs young
girls or young boys about the
impact it has.”
They express feelings of
inferiority when viewing
platforms such as Instagram,
where they compare them-
selves through what she calls
“a highlight reel.” She said
high usage of social media
platforms are driving some
students to stay up later
which, in turn, impacts their
mental health and education.
“You’re always post-
ing things that you’re either
accomplishing or things that
you’re proud of and there are
fi lters and you always have
a smile on your face,” she
said. “And it’s not realistic.
They don’t see any of the
hardship or diffi culty.”
Stuvland said she sees
more teens acknowledging
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A9
the negative eff ects of social
media today. But the plat-
forms remain too good to be
true, explaining that among
many infl uencers and blog-
gers, “there’s not an image
or post that’s not perfect.”
“The negative eff ects are
outweighing the positive
eff ects, at least in teens,”
said Dee Lorence, a coun-
selor at Umatilla High
School, who said the apps
are causing her students to
experience depression, anx-
iety and isolation. “Keep-
ing it inside, or keeping it to
ourselves, is not helping in
any situation. If we’re con-
cerned about something, we
must fi nd someone we know
and trust and will give good
advice.”
Nick Allen is a professor
of clinical psychology and
the director of the Center for
Digital Health at the Univer-
sity of Oregon. For years, he
studied the mental health of
young people.
“When you look at men-
tal health across the lifes-
pan, you see that this period
from 12 to 24, that’s the
period where the vast major-
ity of people are going to
have mental health diffi cul-
ties,” he said. “That’s when
it emerges. It’s the most crit-
ical time in life for under-
standing prevention and
early intervention for mental
health problems.”
Recently, the way social
media impacts teenage men-
tal health has entered the
forefront of Allen’s research.
The arrival of social
media enabled kids to enter
entire worlds of largely
uncensored
information
without parental oversight,
he said. For some, those plat-
forms promoted growth and
gratifi cation. They helped
well-off teens gain friends
and notoriety. They provided
marginalized young people a
way to connect with com-
munities they never could
before.
But for some vulnera-
ble students, cyberbullying,
anxiety, depression, fear of
missing out — or FOMO—
and an endless fl ood of
information left them feeling
overwhelmed, he said.
“It’s a real mix,” Allen
said.
There are multiple fac-
tors that infl uence the impact
social media has on men-
tal health, none of which are
new, Allen said. Using the
apps during the day is typ-
ically less harmful overall
than at night, he said. Active
usage like posting things is
better than passive usage, or
scrolling.
But what is lacking, he
said, is any sort of disclaimer
warning users about the
risk. Much like the automo-
bile industry, he said social
media companies need to
do a better job of making
people aware of the possi-
ble harm that could come
from extended use of the
platforms.
“Over time, there’s been
regulation, there’s been
safety measures, and cars
are much safer than they
used to be,” he said. “I
think social media is going
to be a very similar story
… Initially, the companies
don’t want to admit it. But
when they do admit it and
the government starts put-
ting proper regulations and
safety features, then we’ll
be in a better place and
we’ll be able to enjoy the
benefi ts of social media and
minimize the risk.”
Lucas, the 16-year-old
student from Hermiston,
said she wants to encour-
age more people to talk
about their mental health
and the eff ects social media
have on it. A self-described
mental health advocate, she
said she believes little can
be done to change the plat-
forms themselves. But what
she can help change, she
said, is the relationships her
peers have to social media.
“This is equally good and
equally horrible,” Lucas
said of social media. “The
only way to solve the issues
would be to get rid of the
mean people, get rid of peo-
ple who are bad, get rid of
insecurity. But that’s impos-
sible. I don’t think there are
changes that can be made.
This will be the way this
is until there’s another cul-
tural shift.”