While the start of the school year finds many reminiscing about lazy summer days of play and relaxation, four young local artists spent a week of their vacation exploring the unique healing powers of horses.  As part of the Murals course at Rivermont Collegiate Summer Camp 2012, four students created a truly impressive 5' x 7' mural on canvas drop cloth to be displayed in the arena/pole barn at Juan Diez Rancheros in Davenport.

Before beginning, students spoke with Juan Diez Rancheros about their mission and explored the purpose of their mural.  Juan Diez Rancheros is a non-profit program offering free horse therapy for children who have been abused or emotionally traumatized, with the use of rescued horses.  The program is unlike any other horse therapy offered in the Quad Cities, with testimonials describing children who have become more conversational, trusting, expressive, and patient after interacting with the horses.

Rivermont students Dwira Nandini (5^th grade), Asha Alla (5^th grade), Adam Chamberlain (6^th grade), and Maryam Rasheed (6^th grade) chose to paint a young girl interacting with a horse with the Centennial Bridge in the background.  This was an ambitious project - work was completed in only about two days!  Dwira, Asha, Adam, and Maryam chose the bridge to represent the Quad Cities and symbolize "bridging the gap" - connecting the child's heart with the horse's heart.  They chose to paint silhouettes so that any child could picture themself as the subject of the mural.  The group brainstormed for the ideal words to encircle the image, with each student ultimately selecting one of the four - caring, hope, friendship, and healing.  Maryam explained the soft, cool colors were chosen to express a mood of friendship and bonding.  Her favorite aspects of the project included painting the figures - the girl and the horse having "a moment" - and learning how horses can connect to children and help them overcome trauma.

Students delivered the mural to Juan Diez Rancheros on Friday, August 3^rd and it has been described as an "incredible display of inspiration."  Tremendous thanks go out to the leaders of the Murals course, Dominic Velando and Laura Klavitter, without which this project could not have been completed.

For more information on Juan Diez Rancheros, visit http://juandiezrancheros.org

For more information on Rivermont Collegiate, visit http://www.rvmt.org

Every college football fan has asked, "What was the coach thinking?" at some point or other. That's OK,  says Kathy (Currey) Kronick, author of Mrs. Coach: Life in Major College Football (www.mrscoach14yrs.com), sometimes I wish they would bottle their "BOOs."

As college teams and their fans prepare for the kickoff of another contentious season, Kronick offers insights from her unique perspective as a longtime "Mrs. Coach."

"I have been in stadiums where I've thought to myself, 'This must be what it was like in ancient Rome,' " says Kronick, whose book recounts her years married to Coach Dave Currey. "Some fans get so caught up in the heat of the moment that they forget these players are just kids who may be dealing with injuries or personal problems."

There are many factors that feed into a coach's decision regarding players, plays and clock management, she says. Last-minute decisions may be influenced by events and observations that go back to Pop Warner, or even earlier.

"A football coach's work is never done," she says. "When they're not on the field, in the weight room or at meetings, a head coach's mind is still on football. It was frustrating for me to know all that was behind a decision when fans started booing."

She says fans should remember the following realities in college football:

• Student athletes: It's very difficult to earn a slot on a major college team's roster from high school, and only 2.4 percent of these young players ever make it to the next level. "These are kids just out of high school who have devoted their lives to the game. Most will not become millionaires, or even go pro, so I wish fans would give them a break," Kronick says. "They are also full-time students, too, with all the added pressures of academia."

• Injuries: Some of the most egregious booing comes from fans who think a player isn't tough enough when injured. "The charge is 'lack of heart' when an important player is out of a game due to a 'borderline' injury, which cannot be diagnosed by a doctor or seen in an x-ray," she says. "Many of these student-athletes incur injuries that may affect them if they try to go pro. Even if they don't continue in football, they may carry the limp of the game for the rest of their lives. No athlete should ever be forced to play with an injury."

• Coach knows best: It's the coach's job to obsess over every detail that will help the team win. They do that 24/7, 11 months of the year. (They're off the month of  July, when they attempt to make up for all the family time they've missed, but even then, they're still thinking about the team, Kronick says.) "Their lives revolve around winning - and not making mistakes. A bad call is only so labeled if a play doesn't work," she says. "Couch-surfing coaches and Monday-morning quarterbacks should be aware of that before criticizing."

Coaches always say that if fans buy tickets, they have the right to boo, Kronick says.

"But coaches' wives say, 'Please don't boo around us.' "

About Kathy (Currey) Kronick

Kathy (Currey) Kronick was married to Dave Currey from 1974 to 1989. He was an assistant coach at Stanford University when they met and married, and later moved on to Long Beach State (Calif.), the University of Cincinnati and UCLA. They divorced in 1996. Kronick, who has a bachelor's in education of the deaf and a master's in counseling, is the mother of two children and is happily remarried.

Beginning August 5th, communities across the country and in Iowa will celebrate National Health Center Week.  This week is meant to raise awareness of the crucial role that Community Health Centers - or CHCs - play in providing health care to millions of Americans.  These clinics serve everyone, regardless of ability to pay, and have become a lifeline to Iowans who may have lost a job or are suffering in this economic downturn.

This year's theme is: "Celebrating America's Health Centers: Powering Healthier Communities," which is intended to showcase the multitude of ways these health centers are strengthening communities.

And helping local communities is exactly what these centers do.  CHCs serve some of the nation's most vulnerable - individuals who even if insured would nonetheless remain isolated from traditional forms of medical care because of where they live, who they are, the language they speak, and their higher levels of complex health care needs.

Last year alone, more than 170,000 Iowans chose CHCs for their healthcare, accessing medical, dental, and behavioral health services.  Today, Iowa's health centers provide care to nearly 123,000 Iowans living in poverty, which is more than one-third of the state's total population living in poverty.

Similarly, individuals and families in Iowa who do not have health insurance have also continued to grow, with many of them seeking care at CHCs.  In 2010, Iowa's health centers served more than 66,000 uninsured patients, which is one-quarter of the state's total uninsured population.  Taken together, uninsured, Medicaid, and Medicare patients make up more than three-quarters of CHC patients in Iowa.

As chair of the Senate's health committee and the Appropriations subcommittee that funds health care initiatives, I have made the expansion of the Community Health Center network a major priority.  I have worked to secure a $300 million increase in funding for CHCs this year and also to ensure provisions are included in the new health reform law, the Affordable Care Act, aimed at strengthening CHCs.  These efforts will increase the nurse practitioner, hygienist, and health care workforce and has already funded 286 new sites.  In Iowa alone, the construction and renovation funding I worked to include in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and the Affordable Care Act have brought nearly $30 million of investment to communities across Iowa since 2009.

We are already seeing the benefits of federal CHC policy in Iowa.

In June, the Sioux Community Health Center received a designation as a federal health center, which means the Center will begin to receive an annual operating grant of $595,833 from the U. S. Department of Health and Human Services.

This week, a clinic will expand on the east side of Des Moines, having been constructed with a $2.6 million grant from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Council Bluffs recently opened a new facility with $5 million from the Affordable Care Act, and my office continues to work with the town of Clinton to find a good site to construct a clinic there with $9 million, also from the Affordable Care Act.

Across our state, community health centers are improving care, even as they strive to serve more people.  With help from the Recovery Act, they are transitioning to electronic health records that will better coordinate care, even while they work with the State of Iowa to welcome IowaCares patients into their clinics.

I am very proud of Iowa's health centers and I encourage all Iowans to find out what our health centers are doing in your area.  To find the nearest center, please visit: www.ianepca.com.  For more information about National Health Center Week, visit http://www.healthcenterweek.org/join.html.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact any of my offices in Iowa or Washington, D.C. or visit my website at harkin.senate.gov.

A PDF version of the article is available by clicking here

While media and collegiate officials debated how best to handle the Penn State child-rape scandal, including the systemic cover-up by university leaders, others want the public to know just how such abuse ruins lives.

"I've heard commentators say things like, 'What's done is done,' or 'There's no one left to go after,' or 'Why punish the students and the athletes? - It's time to heal,' " says child advocate Linda O'Dochartaigh, whose novel Peregrine (www.lavanderkatbooks.com), details the stark aftermath of child sex abuse. "If they were the victims, or their children were, I don't think those sports analysts would be so quick to forgive and forget."

To hear supporters of the university's football program is surprisingly reminiscent of those who defend abusers, she says.

Penn State's board could do the noble thing and make it easy on themselves by self imposing the "death penalty" option - temporarily shutting down the embattled football program, she says.

"As terrible as the initial abuse is for children, the volume of lifelong negative consequences is usually worse," O'Dochartaigh says. "Children who suffer sexual abuse often hear the voice of their abuser in their minds for the rest of their lives, telling them they're bad, they're ugly, they're worthless. These children are often sentenced to a lifetime of relationships in which they are victims."

O'Dochartaigh reviews the lasting scars of child sexual abuse:

• Trouble handling emotions: One of the surest signs of well-being is the ability to handle adversity in stride; to keep emotions in check. "For victims of sexual abuse, a lasting legacy is the opposite of well-being," she says. Victims may have trouble expressing emotions, which are then bottled up, often leading to sporadic bouts of depression, anger and anxiety. Many turn to drugs and alcohol to numb their pain.

• A core sense of worthlessness or being damaged: The physical side of sexual abuse is just one aspect; what haunts victims is the voice of the abuser, constantly reinforcing a lack of personal value. As time passes and children mature into adults, victims often do not invest in themselves. With a deep sense of being damaged, they often feel incapable or unworthy of higher-paying jobs, for example.

• Difficulty in relationships and lack of trust: Most child abuse comes from authority figures who are close to the victim - family members, family friends, church leaders, teachers, etc. Children who cannot feel secure within their own family, the most fundamental of relationships, may develop deep-seeded trust issues. Relationships are frequently doomed because victims trash good relationships, fearing their partner will ultimately try to control or hurt them, or they'll bond with an abusive person because they do not know what a good relationship entails.

"When I hear the 'yeah, but' argument from people defending those who allow sexual abuse to continue, whether its' at Penn State or in the Catholic Church, I realize we have to do more to raise awareness about how sexual abuse can ruin lives," says O'Dochartaigh.

About Linda O'Dochartaigh

Linda O'Dochartaigh has worked in health care is an advocate for victims of child abuse and domestic violence.  She wants survivors to know that an enriched, stable and happy life is available to them. O'Dochartaigh is the mother of three grown children and is raising four adopted grandchildren.