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©Hannah Bassett/AZCIR: Jared Marquez, 34, looks back on donated items before distributing care packages with Stolen People, Stolen Benefits, a grassroots group assisting tribal members displaced by the sober living home crisis. The group regularly searches the streets of Phoenix to connect unsheltered tribal members with resources like housing, treatment, and transportation home.

AHCCCS alerted to ‘predictable’ homelessness surge before fraud crackdown

Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting (AZCIR) by Hannah Bassett, December 28, 2023: The state agency at the center of Arizona’s ongoing behavioral health crisis knew its proposed billing reforms could trigger a surge in homelessness nearly a year before implementing the changes, yet still failed to adequately prepare for the fallout—or…

©John Leos/Cronkite News: Shela Yu, a Phoenix-based artist, in her studio space on Nov. 30. Yu was raised in Mesa.

Being ‘my own role model’: Normalizing mental health care in the AANHPI community

Cronkite News by Deanna Pistono, December 22, 2023: For Jessika Malic, communications director of Asian Pacific Community for Action, a Phoenix-based nonprofit focused on providing access to health care, her search for the right mental health provider for herself involved some added effort. “I thought it would be great to…

©Emily Kinskey/The Texas Tribune: Elizabeth Ramirez, mother to three children, sits at home in El Paso. After her eldest child experienced a mental health crisis, Ramirez navigated through the confusing and under-resourced Texas mental health system in search for professional help.

How the Texas vision for seamless mental health care fell apart over 60 years

The Texas Tribune by Stephen Simpson, December 22, 2023: A lack of private providers, a swamped community mental health system, and low insurance reimbursement have cut off many in Texas from basic mental health services It was in early 2020, a few months into the COVID-19 pandemic, that the world…

©Sofi Gratas/GPB: Jocelyn Wallace, executive director of The Never Alone Clubhouse, stands at the entrance of the recovery center in Douglas County. As someone in recovery herself, she opened this place two years ago to give people who have dealt with substance use disorder a chance to connect.

More options, less stigma: How Georgians in recovery are breaking barriers to addiction care

Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) by Sofi Gratas, December 19, 2023: For Jocelyn Wallace, a former paramedic from Douglas County, her opioid addiction started like many others — with a prescription to treat her pain after a car accident. She was 16 years old at the time. Her addiction would endure…

©Jason Getz/AJC: Steven Allwood, center, listens as his father Vernon Allwood speaks during the Eddie Gaffney lecture series about mental health at Dansby Hall on the Morehouse College campus, Tuesday, October 17, 2023, in Atlanta.

Suffering in silence: Male college students less likely to seek counseling

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution by Vanessa McCray, December 16, 2023: When Vernon Allwood helped open Morehouse College’s counseling center 35 years ago, he had to convince students to talk about their problems. “Morehouse men didn’t need counseling,” he said wryly during a fall lecture at the historically Black men’s college in…

©Whitney Bryen/Oklahoma Watch: Freddy Corona and Shawna Normali looked at photos of their daughter, Lena Corona, with their son Josh Corona. Lena Corona, 18, was in psychosis in July when she was arrested and taken to the Seminole County jail where she died by suicide.

These Oklahomans Needed Mental Health Care. Instead, They Died in Jail.

Oklahoma Watch by Whitney Bryen, December 15, 2023: Lena Corona was sitting on the porch of her Seminole home, blood dripping from her hand, when police arrived at 2:45 a.m. Her dad stood behind her, pressing a T-shirt over the wound on his chest where Corona had plunged a shard…

©Manuel Martinez/WBEZ: Jorge Rubiano came to Chicago from Colombia this summer and is staying at a shelter on the Southwest Side. He mostly keeps his experiences to himself. But for migrants who want to talk about their mental health, a parade of helpers is filling in the void of a frayed mental health system. On Nov. 3, 2023.

The mental health of migrants simmers below the surface as the next looming crisis

WBEZ by Kristen Schorsch, December 14, 2023: Support groups are trying to address the obstacles to care, including language barriers and a persistent shortage of mental health workers. Jorge Rubiano is a haunted man. For months, he has tried to find work. For months, he has slept in a shelter,…

Brian Miller, a school resource officer for Charles W. Harris School in Phoenix, greets children at the school during his shift on Dec. 7, 2023. ©Brendon Derr/AZCIR

GOP-led push to fund police over counselors leaves some schools ‘in the lurch’

Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting (AZCIR) by Maria Polletta, December 14, 2023: Brian Miller is a fixture at Charles W. Harris School in Phoenix, a familiar face kids and parents encounter four days a week. Mornings and afternoons, the school resource officer is in the parking lot directing traffic —…

Remembering Rosalynn Carter

‘A friend to us all’: Rosalynn Carter is remembered fondly by her namesake Fellows

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, the founder and namesake of the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism, passed away on November 19, 2023. She was 96. Not long after, the Carter family issued a statement sharing that, “Rosalynn Carter’s deep compassion for people everywhere and her untiring strength on…