The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: del norte

  • New Grant Lends Helping Hand

    New Grant Lends Helping Hand

    Mental health grant seeks to address adverse childhood experiences in Humboldt

    A new $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education will be placing Masters of Social Work students at Humboldt State University in Eureka City Schools and Del Norte County schools as stipend workers.

    “The grants themselves are funding positions at Eureka City Schools and also the Del Norte Unified School District,” Director of Field Education at HSU’s Department of Social Work Yvonne Doble said. “It’s actually a full time benefited position that’s being brought on at the school side to support our students.”

    Announced Nov. 20, the funds will come from the U.S. Department of Education Mental Health Service Professional Development Program.

    Nearly $1 million of the grant will be going to Humboldt State to help support the students and get them prepared for applying for the Pupil Personnel Services Credential, which is necessary for social work students to be hired by schools.

    “A large portion of that is coming specifically for the stipends for the students,” Doble said. “We plan to offer a class for stipend recipients, where they will receive faculty guidance and support regarding school social work practice.”

    The grant will be placing Masters of Social Work students at HSU in varying levels of schools throughout Del Norte and Humboldt Counties.

    “It looks like we are going to have eight students this next fall, maybe more, and that will move up to 13 to 15 students by year four of the grant,” Doble said.

    Locally, students face higher than normal rates of Adverse Childhood Experiences in Humboldt and Del Norte.

    “Our region, for a number of reasons, has California’s highest ACEs rates in Humboldt and Del Norte County,” Jack Bareilles, the Northern Humboldt Union High School District grants administrator and an author of the grant, said. “You’re looking at approximately a third of all kids are being raised in families with four or more of the ten ACEs. So there is just a real need for that here, and I believe that’s one of the reasons we got funded.”

    • A graph taken from the HSU California Center for Rural Policy Sept. 2017 report on adverse childhood experiences.

    ACEs can include things like alcohol and drug use or violence in the home, housing insecurity and food insecurity.

    “Locally, there is a real need for support for students and support for families,” Bareilles said. “Social workers are uniquely qualified to provide, and that being said, we actually have a real shortage of social workers in the schools. It’s just something that we haven’t had before.”

    Bareilles said the shortage comes from the lack of PPS credentials for students, and also because social workers, which are different from counselors and school psychiatrists, are mainly used in larger cities. Now, the PPS credential will be offered at HSU.

    “Kids and schools and families will be helped, and when push comes to shove, that is the most important thing.”

    Jack Bareilles

    “The role of school social workers is to really help address social and emotional needs of our students,” Doble said. “It’s not just about academic counseling. It’s about providing resources to children and families. It’s about providing opportunities to developers, opportunities to repair harm that’s occurred.”

    Bareilles said doing social work in school systems differs greatly from social work in other categories because the public schools operate under different processes than normal organizations.

    “Having these interns work two days a week for a whole year working in a high school or middle school or elementary school, they will emerge from their MSW program with a real sense of, ‘Oh this is how schools work,’” Bareilles said. “So whether or not they are employed as a school social worker or some other child-serving social worker, they will really have a better ability of connecting the dots and getting kids what they need.”

    Bareilles said the grant is a huge win for mental health support in Humboldt County and will help provide many troubled youths with the resources and personnel that they need.

    “Kids and schools and families will be helped, and when push comes to shove, that is the most important thing,” Bareilles said.

  • Redwoods Growing at Remarkable Rates

    Redwoods Growing at Remarkable Rates

    Some coastal redwoods are growing faster than expected and scientists aren’t certain why

    Many redwoods in Northern California are growing at unexpected—even record-breaking—rates. While redwoods only remain in a tiny portion of the world, they appear to be in good health.

    “People talk about saving the redwoods,” Humboldt State University Professor of Forest Ecology Steve Sillett said. “The redwoods, as long as we don’t cut them down, are doing just fine. The question is, can they help save us?”

    The answer is complicated.

    “The Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative found that one Del Norte County redwood put on 2,811 pounds in 2014, a record-breaking annual growth.”

    Many coastal redwoods are growing faster today than they have in the last thousand years, according to a 2019 report from the ongoing Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative.

    The RCCI, a research partnership studying redwood health since 2013, found surprising growth in redwoods located away from dry forest fringes or recent fires.

    By estimating tree weight based on the tree’s measured width, height and volume, the RCCI found one Del Norte County redwood put on 2,811 pounds in 2014, a record-breaking annual growth.

    The cause of the increased growth is uncertain. Sillett, who sat in his lab beside tree rings which he used to measure age and growth, said climate change may or may not play a role in the increased growth. Sillett said the Clean Air Act of 1970 may have cleaned the air enough to allow more sunlight on the trees.

    “What happened is, the air cleared,” Sillett said. “And with clear air, you get more light, and so it could very well be that this increase in growth rate that we see very strikingly in some of these trees, starting in the late 60s and early 70s to present, is just because of increasing air quality.”

    Beyond climate and air quality, Sillett said multiple factors likely contribute to increased growth. Sillett also said the growth won’t necessarily last.

    “I think that there’s very much a limit to what redwoods or any vegetation can achieve,” Sillett said.

    A redwood tree ring in HSU Professor Stephen Sillett’s lab Aug. 28. | Photo by James Wilde

    A sudden spread of redwood forest also seems unlikely, Lucy Kerhoulas, an assistant professor of forest physiology, said. Kerhoulas said redwoods already have to work hard to reproduce via seed. Climate change might make reproduction even more difficult.

    “Successful seedling germination and establishment might be really challenging under a warming and drying climate,” Kerhoulas said.

    In other words, redwoods are doing well, but they’re not about to reclaim their lost forests.

    Sillett emphasized that many living redwoods are maintaining their normal growth despite less successful reproduction.

    “It’s not the case that they’re responding uniformly,” Sillett said. “But what we do see is that in the prime parts of their range, which is, say, north of San Francisco and relatively close to the coast, the rates of wood production are higher than they were in the not-too-distant past.”

    Redwoods store large amounts of carbon, especially in their prime ranges, but Sillett said that won’t offset the carbon dioxide produced by humans.

    “There’s not enough land in the world to plant with redwood forest,” Sillett said, “that would allow them to save us from what we’re doing to the atmosphere’s chemistry.”