I-Team In-Depth

A Survival Tool In Transgender Community, Breast Binders Are In High Demand

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Requests for free breast binders by transgender youths in 2022 have outnumbered supplies at Health Care Advocates International (HCAI) in Stratford, which serves LGBTQ and HIV communities. HCAI received 126 binder requests in the first three weeks of January alone, crushing last year’s numbers and temporarily wiping out inventory. The group sent out 190 binders in all of 2021. A quarter of them went to Connecticut youths, with the rest shipped nationwide and beyond.

“The numbers are jumping because there is such a need,” says Tony Ferraiolo, the Youth & Family Program director at HCAI. He began the binder program on his own before working with HCAI because he knew from experience the difference a binder can make in a young person’s life. “When you give a child hope for a better life, they won’t want to take their life. When we give them a binder, they’re walking tall. It is literally life-saving.”

I-Team In-Depth

The Migraine Breakthrough

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Migraines have baffled humankind at least as far back as the ancient Egyptians, who blamed the excruciating headaches, and their often-accompanying visual auras and nausea, on the supernatural.

Now, in a development doctors are calling revolutionary, an international group of neurologists has deciphered the mystery of why people get migraines and, in doing so, has determined how to greatly reduce their frequency and severity.

Surging Behavioral Health Care Needs For Children Put Strain On School Social Workers

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On paper, the social worker’s role at public K-12 schools is straightforward: to support a caseload of students with special needs to thrive in often-challenging academic setting. But ask a social worker employed in a public school these days, and they’re likely to tell a much different story.

For social worker Jara Rijs, who works at Windham Center School, where more than half of its pre-K through fifth-grade students qualify for subsidized lunch, the job responsibilities bleed well beyond the job description, particularly since the pandemic hit.

I-Team In-Depth

Calls To Rethink The War On Opioids

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When three 13-year-old boys were sickened by the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl at a Hartford middle school on Jan. 13, it was a shocking reminder of the human toll of the opioid crisis. One of the boys later died and a sweep of the school surfaced 40 small plastic bags of the drug.

I-Team In-Depth

Safety Net For Neglected Older Teens Can Be Difficult To Secure

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Emily Kendricks has to eat soft foods, just like her grandfather. Although she’s only 18, she’s missing six teeth due to her parents’ dental neglect, advocates say.

Her mother ignored her, excluded her from meals, and did not return urgent calls from Kendricks’ school guidance counselor, so Kendricks left home and moved in with a friend’s family. Despite efforts to bring Kendricks’ case to the attention of the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) by that counselor and her friend’s mother starting a few weeks after her 17th birthday, DCF did not take Kendricks into state care until shortly before her 18th birthday.

Women's Health

Home Births Rise In Connecticut As Pandemic Prompts Women To Seek Alternatives To Hospitals

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Cameron English got comfortable on the cushioned green exam table as her 3-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter played nearby. Initially, as midwife Carolyn Greenfield swept a monitor over English’s pregnant belly, there was only an indistinct swoosh. But before long, the instrument found and amplified a distinctive, quick double thump.

English was all smiles, hearing her baby’s heartbeat for the first time.