The Unity girls basketball team added a lopsided tick to their win column after defeating Rantoul on the road by 23 points on Thursday.
Interestingly enough, senior Chloee Reed led all scorers with 23 points during her 25 minutes on the floor. Teammate Taylor Henry notched a double-double with 11 points and 16 rebounds. Lauren Miller rounded out the top three scorers for the Rockets with 10 points, 5 rebounds and the same number of assists. Henry also led the team with four steals on defense.
Next up, Unity will host the Warriors just down the road piece from Tuscola. The guests are 10-3 overall and 4-2 in the Central Illinois Conference.
In addition to online activities and video tutorials, Casio also offers a weekly educational webinar series focused on mathematics on its YouTube channel, covering such subjects as elementary and middle school math, algebra I and II, geometry, pre-calculus, calculus and statistics. All webinars are recorded and can be accessed any time.
Even after classrooms reopen nationwide, one thing is certain, with so many amazing resources available to help educators teach and students learn, digital learning tools are here to stay.
The season is winding down and their still time to watch five area sports teams tonight on the NFHS Network.
The Rockets girls basketball varsity and JV squad travel to Rantoul for an Illini Prairie Conference contest today. The Eagles (0-4) are still looking for their first win of the season, while Unity, 1-7 overall and 1-4 in conference play, would like to add yet another victory to their win column tonight.
The St. Joseph-Ogden girls teams are also on the road tonight at Olympia, who are tied for third place with Monticello as of today with a pair of conference wins and one loss. The Spartans are currently ranked #2 with victories over five IPC teams.
Here is tonight's line-up:
• St. Joseph-Ogden Girls Junior Varsity Basketball @ Olympia | 5:30 PM Central
• Unity Girls Junior Varsity Basketball @ Rantoul | 5:30 PM Central
• St. Joseph-Ogden Girls Varsity Basketball @ Olympia | 7:00 PM Central
• Unity Girls Varsity Basketball @ Rantoul | 7:00 PM Central
• Unity Boys Middle school Basketball @ Tuscola | 7:15 PM Central
If you are not already a subscriber, follow this link sign up for a monthly or annual subscription to watch SJO or Unity sports via live stream or archived by the NFHS Network. Monthly passes are just $10.99 each or save 47% and purchase an annual subscription at $69.99.
Did you miss the last Unity or SJO basketball game. One of coolest thing about the NFHS Network is the ability to go back and watch games over and over again as long as you are a member. You can view this season's SJO basketball games here and all the Unity Rocket basketball games streamed so far here.
After several weeks of working through a variety of therapy modalities, the getaway connected with the client in a way that nothing else had. This activity showed the client how the skills they learned made a difference in everyday life and could give them positive interests to pursue long after leaving treatment.
Therapeutic recreation is one important way residential clients find healing at Rosecrance. It is woven into the fabric of treatment program at all sites because it possesses a power to connect with clients in unique ways. Based in experience or action, what may seem like fun and games actually is a critical technique that teaches clients how to navigate life using what they learned on the basketball court, a canoe trip, in a greenhouse, and in other experiential learning settings. Data show that this improves stress, anxiety, emotional regulation, engagement with others, and knowledge of life skills.
Therapies are designed to give clients opportunities to grow in safe stress situations. By working through issues while completing a painting or doing a teambuilding exercise, clients discover that they can manage everyday life using what they learned in these settings.
"We create safe spaces where they can take risks and show vulnerabilities," said Therapeutic Recreation Coordinator Abby Nelson. "Therapeutic recreation can’t live in treatment. They have to take it home with them. It’s huge when they the can verbalize what they are going to do when they leave Rosecrance."
Rosecrance offers clients a multi-faceted range of activities such as art, horticulture, fitness, sports, yoga, meditation and mindfulness, labyrinth and sensory room, team building exercises, and more. Seasonal events add to the variety with events such as hiking, canoeing, the Heart Art show in February, and Haunted Woods in October.
"We know everyone has a different passion, and that is why we incorporate so many therapies into our treatment," said therapeutic recreation specialist Paul Fasano. "For some, that may be yoga, and others may be drawn to something like art or outdoors activities. Whatever it is, it’s always satisfying to see clients find their niche."
Staff help create a healing environment by participating in activities with clients to show what is possible. They are side-by-side lifting weights, meditating, and painting to model what is possible in life. It also gives therapeutic recreation staff opportunities to continuously grow through challenges such as training for half-marathons together.
"It’s important that we demonstrate skills ourselves, whether we’re at work or at home," said therapeutic recreation specialist Alyssa Newton. "That makes things that might seem intimidating at first a lot more accessible. We can point out our progress and highlight when we see clients taking big steps forward."
Blake Kimball led the Rockets with a game-high 20 points and Nate Drennen added another 16 in their team's overtime road loss to St. Thomas More. Austin Langendorf, Henry Thomas and Damian Knoll combined their effort for 12 more points for UHS.
Unity's next game is at home against Rantoul this Friday.
Tens of thousands of middle-aged sons and daughters caring for older relatives with serious ailments but too young to qualify for a vaccine themselves are similarly terrified of becoming ill and wondering when they can get protected against the coronavirus.
Like aides and other workers in nursing homes, these family caregivers routinely administer medications, monitor blood pressure, cook, clean and help relatives wash, get dressed and use the toilet, among many other responsibilities. But they do so in apartments and houses, not in long-term care institutions — and they’re not paid.
“In all but name, they’re essential health care workers, taking care of patients who are very sick, many of whom are completely reliant upon them, some of whom are dying,” said Katherine Ornstein, a caregiving expert and associate professor of geriatrics and palliative medicine at Mount Sinai’s medical school in New York City. “Yet, we don’t recognize or support them as such, and that’s a tragedy.”
The distinction is critically important because health care workers have been prioritized to get covid vaccines, along with vulnerable older adults in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. But family members caring for equally vulnerable seniors living in the community are grouped with the general population in most states and may not get vaccines for months.
The exception: Older caregivers can qualify for vaccines by virtue of their age as states approve vaccines for adults ages 65, 70 or 75 and above. A few states have moved family caregivers into phase 1a of their vaccine rollouts, the top priority tier. Notably, South Carolina has done so for families caring for medically fragile children, and Illinois has given that designation to families caring for relatives of all ages with significant disabilities.
Arizona is also trying to accommodate caregivers who accompany older residents to vaccination sites, Dr. Cara Christ, director of the state’s Department of Health Services, said Monday during a Zoom briefing for President Joe Biden. Comprehensive data about which states are granting priority status to family caregivers is not available.
Meanwhile, the Department of Veterans Affairs recently announced plans to offer vaccines to people participating in its Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers. That initiative gives financial stipends to family members caring for veterans with serious injuries; 21,612 veterans are enrolled, including 2,310 age 65 or older, according to the VA. Family members can be vaccinated when the veterans they look after become eligible, a spokesperson said.
“The current pandemic has amplified the importance of our caregivers whom we recognize as valuable members of Veterans’ health care teams,” Dr. Richard Stone, VA acting undersecretary for health, said in the announcement.
An estimated 53 million Americans are caregivers, according to a 2020 report. Nearly one-third spend 21 hours or more each week helping older adults and people with disabilities with personal care, household tasks and nursing-style care (giving injections, tending wounds, administering oxygen and more). An estimated 40% are providing high-intensity care, a measure of complicated, time-consuming caregiving demands.
This is the group that should be getting vaccines, not caregivers who live at a distance or who don’t provide direct, hands-on care, said Carol Levine, a senior fellow and former director of the Families and Health Care Project at the United Hospital Fund in New York City.
Rosanne Corcoran, 53, is among them. Her 92-year-old mother, Rose, who has advanced dementia, lives with Corcoran and her family in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, on the second floor of their house. She hasn’t come down the stairs in three years.
“I wouldn’t be able to take her somewhere to get the vaccine. She doesn’t have any stamina,” said Corcoran, who arranges for doctors to make house calls when her mother needs attention. When she called their medical practice recently, an administrator said they didn’t have access to the vaccines.
Corcoran said she “does everything for her mother,” including bathing her, dressing her, feeding her, giving her medications, monitoring her medical needs and responding to her emotional needs. Before the pandemic, a companion came for five hours a day, offering some relief. But last March, Corcoran let the companion go and took on all her mother’s care herself.
Corcoran wishes she could get a vaccination sooner, rather than later. “If I
got sick, God forbid, my mother would wind up in a nursing home,” she said.
“The thought of my mother having to leave here, where she knows she’s safe and
loved, and go to a place like that makes me sick to my stomach.”
Although covid cases are dropping in nursing homes and assisted living facilities as residents and staff members receive vaccines, 36% of deaths during the pandemic have occurred in these settings.
Maggie Ornstein, 42, a caregiving expert who teaches at Sarah Lawrence College, has provided intensive care to her mother, Janet, since Janet experienced a devastating brain aneurism at age 49. For the past 20 years, her mother has lived with Ornstein and her family in Queens, New York.
In a recent opinion piece, Ornstein urged New York officials to recognize family caregivers’ contributions and reclassify them as essential workers. “We’re used to being abandoned by a system that should be helping us and our loved ones,” she told me in a phone conversation. “But the utter neglect of us during this pandemic — it’s shocking.”
Ornstein estimated that if even a quarter of New York’s 2.5 million family caregivers became ill with covid and unable to carry on, the state’s nursing homes would be overwhelmed by applications from desperate families. “We don’t have the infrastructure for this, and yet we’re pretending this problem just doesn’t exist,” she said.
In Tomball, Texas, Robin Davidson’s father was independent before the pandemic, but he began declining as he stopped going out and became more sedentary. For almost a year, Davidson has driven every day to his 11-acre ranch, 5 miles from where she lives, and spent hours tending to him and the property’s upkeep.
“Every day, when I would come in, I would wonder, was I careful enough [to avoid the virus]? Could I have picked something up at the store or getting gas? Am I going to be the reason that he dies? My constant proximity to him and my care for him is terrifying,” she said.
Since her father’s hospitalization, Davidson’s goal is to stabilize him so he can enroll in a clinical trial for congestive heart failure. Medications for that condition no longer work for him, and fluid retention has become a major issue. He’s now home on the ranch after spending more than a week in the hospital and he’s gotten two doses of vaccine — “an indescribable relief,” Davidson said.
Out of the blue, she got a text from the Harris County health department earlier this month, after putting herself on a vaccine waitlist. Vaccines were available, it read, and she quickly signed up and got a shot. Davidson ended up being eligible because she has two chronic medical conditions that raise her risk of covid; Harris County doesn’t officially recognize family caregivers in its vaccine allocation plan, a spokesperson said.
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After weeks of increased violence, uncertainty, and a stalemate between the negotiating parties, talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban resumed earlier this week in Doha, amid a looming deadline for US troops to fully withdraw from the country by May of this year. Despite the flurry of historic developments that have taken place in Afghanistan over the past year, the next couple of months will be a critical test for both the momentum of the peace process and the patience of the major players involved.
For the Biden Administration, the outcome of the dialogue in Doha will be the first major foreign policy challenge, one that will either culminate in a historic agreement or continued entrenchment for what has already been America’s longest war. Public opinion polls conducted amongst a diverse group of American voters suggest that while most have experienced fatigue with the conflict, very few support a complete withdrawal of US troops, even when accounting for partisan differences.
Nevertheless, a full drawdown would likely strengthen the Taliban’s position, and encourage a repeat of the chaos that ensued in the aftermath of the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989, and the cessation of Soviet foreign aid in 1991, which quickly brought down the government of Mohammad Najibullah a year later.
The Taliban’s current fighting force (estimated between 40,000-60,000 fighters) would take complete control of Afghan territory, highly unlikely. However, a potential breakdown of the current unity government, buttressed by the Taliban’s enduring connection to both Al-Qaeda, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant-Khorasan Province (ISIL-Khorasan), would whet the Taliban’s risk appetite for sustained engagement with the Afghan armed forces as seen in the past months.
Given the fragility of the Ghani government, and waning enthusiasm from the American side, the Biden Administration’s best option is to pursue a compromise that would postpone their scheduled withdrawal in May and buy more time for the negotiators. The US exit from Afghanistan should be condition-based on peace in Afghanistan. The Americans should make it clear to the Taliban that if they don’t want peace, they will stay in Afghanistan.
If your next trip feels more complicated to plan than you remember, you're not imagining it. Fuel prices, geopolitical tension...
