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Six children sit together working individually in a colorful, collaborative workspace with a big window.

Can architecture help students’ mental health? This Fort Worth designer says yes

From the Fort Worth Report

Students should hear birds chirping in their schools.

Not the literal sound. But school designer Kerri Brady wants campuses to evoke that natural sense of peace and safety, so students can be present, better regulate their emotions and learn.

©Cristian ArguetaSoto/Fort Worth Report: Students raise their hands to answer a teacher’s questions at Como Elementary in Fort Worth on March 11, 2022.

Here are the ways Fort Worth schools provide mental health care to students

From the Fort Worth Report

Carly Kandel ensures Briscoe Elementary is a good place for her students.

Nearly all of the Fort Worth ISD school’s students come from low-income homes, and their basic needs aren’t always being met, said Kandel, a program manager for Communities In Schools of Greater Tarrant County.

Science teacher works with Academy students in the classroom on a science project.

Fort Worth charter school focuses on trauma-informed curriculum. What does that mean?

From the Fort Worth Report

Superintendent Stephanie Love’s eyes were glued on her students eating in the cafeteria.

The sixth graders chatted with cafeteria staff while grabbing their lunches. Those who already had food talked or played games with each other on their laptops. Some asked for personal space.

Posters for I Matter, the state's free student therapy program hang in Fort Collins High School. The initiative was launched in 2021, in response to a significant increase in youth mental health needs in Colorado.  ©Leigh Paterson/KUNC

From long wait lists to high costs, finding a therapist in Colorado is harder than it should be

From KUNC

In communities across Northern Colorado, people are struggling with their mental health while also struggling to get the care they need.

County Behavioral Health Services Director Luke Bergmann speaks to members of the media about the CARE Act program at the County Administration Center in downtown on Sept. 27, 2023./ ©Ariana Drehsler

Law Could Increase Demand for Often-Elusive Addiction Treatment

From the Voice of San Diego

A state law set to take effect in January aims to make it easier to force Californians with severe substance use disorders into treatment that is now often not immediately available to San Diegans who want it.

Vehicle and trailer driving on a curved Arizona road with mountains in the background.

Road to Recovery

From the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting

Courtney Altaha and James Cody Jr. piled their belongings into a small white trailer baking under the Phoenix sun. Their boxes—filled with clothes, books, paperwork, a child’s booster seat—dwarfed the single duffle bag they’d carried when they left the Fort Apache Indian Reservation two years earlier. They came to the city in search of treatment for addictions that had robbed them of their health, house and custody of their five children.

©Leigh Paterson/KUNC: Students walk past the doors of the school-based health center at Glenwood Springs High School during a passing period on September 19th, 2023. Every student who goes in for a medical or behavioral health appointment is screened for depression, anxiety and self-harm.

One answer to the youth mental health crisis? Asking Colorado students how they’re feeling

From KUNC

Rates of anxiety and depression among young people are the highest they’ve been since 2013, when Colorado first began collecting this data. Driven by the urgent state of youth mental health, an effort is underway in Colorado to identify kids who need behavioral health help before they are in crisis.

©Ariana Drehsler/A portion of a stack of 2022 phone screens sit on the desk of Program Manager Darlene Jackson at the McAlister Institute's Adult Detox in Lemon Grove.

Getting Drug Treatment Beds Is So Hard for Poor It’s Like Winning the Lottery

From the Voice of San Diego

On a recent day earlier this month, Jerry Shirey’s team at San Diego Freedom Ranch had a list of more than 30 people seeking a detox bed to start the agonizing process of withdrawing from drugs or alcohol. Freedom Ranch had one bed left to offer.

Posters of missing Indigenous people are displayed outside of Drumbeat Indian Arts in Phoenix on Sept. 28, 2023, where the advocacy group Stolen People, Stolen Benefits is based. ©Brendon Derr/AZCIR

Patients, advocates describe ‘pure chaos’ in state response to AHCCCS fraud

From the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting (AZCIR)

On May 16, as cameras flashed and tribal leaders looked on, Arizona’s governor and attorney general announced a statewide crackdown on behavioral health providers suspected of defrauding the state’s Medicaid program out of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.