2016 Oklahoma Annual Book of Reports

2016 Oklahoma Nurses Association
• Bullying Prevention in Oklahoma Schools Overview-Joy Hermansen, Oklahoma State Department
of Education (OSDE) In Oklahoma, 20.4% of high school students reported being bullied on school
property. Bullying includes making threats, spreading rumors, physical altercations, and excluding
them from a group. Negative outcomes include impacts on mental health, substance use, suicide
and climate not suitable for learning. Some key strategies have been addressed in reducing bullying
in the schools which include: focus on environment of school, encourage staff and parent support,
coordinate and integrate prevention efforts, provide training in bullying prevention to school staff,
establish and enforce school rules and policies, increase adult supervision in hot spots and intervene
consistently and appropriately. An objective for OHIP is to reduce the number of high school
youth grades 9-12 who report they were bullied from 18.6 to 18% by 2020. Steps to help reach
this goal include: partnerships with Oklahoma Suicide Prevention, Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics,
Oklahoma Office of Homeland Security, OSDH, ABLE Commission, Heartline, Substance Abuse
Services and many others. The OSDE has updated their website with over 60 current and evidencebased
resources for parents, student, and community members. They have a resource library for
disseminating free bullying prevention materials to schools and can provide resources, toolkits, and
lesson plans during National Bullying Prevention month in October.
• Child Abuse and Neglect and Its Impact on Children’s Health in Oklahoma – From the
Perspective of the Chief Child Abuse Examiner Dr. Sarah Passmore, Board of Child Abuse
Examiners, Oklahoma Commission on Children and Youth-spoke to the group about the impact of
abuse and neglect on children. According to the DHS 2014 annual report, 138,080 reports of child
abuse/neglect were made with 14,172 of those cases being confirmed. Nationally there are 47.1 per
1000 cases of abuse/neglect reported and during that same time Oklahoma reported 63.1 per 1000.
The types of abuse reported showed neglect ranked 1st with 79.5%, physical abuse at 18%, sexual
abuse 9%, psychological 8.7%, medical neglect 2.3% and other types at 10%. For the State Fiscal
Year ending in June, 2014, 375 infants were born testing positive for drugs, an increase from 322
infants reported for SFY 2013.
• Dr. Passmore explained the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) score and how the higher number
you receive the more adverse complications you could have as an adult. Compared to persons with
an ACE score of 0, those with ACE score of 4 or more were twice as likely to be smokers, 12 times
more likely to have attempted suicide, 7 times more likely to be alcoholic and 10 times more likely
to have injected street drugs. The higher your ACE score the more it could affect social, emotional
and cognitive impairment; you could be at greater risk of disease, disability and social problems and
could even lead to an early death.
• Impact of Domestic Violence on Children and Families. Dr. MaryAnne McCaffree, OUHSC - Dr.
McCaffree additionally addressed ACE scores and the effects that they could potentially have later in
life. The higher your ACE score the higher your risk for other adverse issues in life such as, smoking,
organic disease, adult alcoholism, depression, STDs, rape, hallucinations, domestic violence,
addictions, dying early, and job problems/lost time from work. In addition, the risk of being the victim
of domestic violence increases significantly with an ACE score of 5 or higher in both women and
men. As it relates specifically to children, the maltreatment in a developing brain shows accelerated
loss of neurons, delays in myelination, delays in neuronal pruning and inhibition of neurogenesis. Dr.
McCaffree explained that there are 700 new synapses every second in a developing brain. These
synapses are delayed or begin to erode when child abuse and neglect take place. Children with
physical abuse caused more erosion but a combination of physical abuse, exposure to domestic
violence, or bullying caused the most erosion. Studies also show these children will have decreased
life span as adults and earlier onset of chronic diseases.
• OSDH Safe Sleep/Social Determinants of Health CoIIN Update – Joyce Marshall/Angela Dickson,
MCH Service. Funding available from Association of Maternal & Child Health Program and Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation for Pilot program which started in three different Oklahoma sites. Pilot
program educates caregivers on safe sleep best practices. Plan is to distribute over 300 portable
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