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The sign outside of Youth Services of Tulsa. The non-profit agency runs an emergency youth shelter. DYLAN GOFORTH/THE FRONTIER

Some Oklahoma parents turn kids over to the state after struggling to get mental health care for them

From The Frontier

Tucked between a highway and railroad tracks just east of Tulsa’s downtown, the county’s only emergency youth shelter acts as a temporary home for some teenagers who have been abandoned by their parents and have nowhere else to go.

AZCIR Staff

Lack of oversight, coordination hinder efforts to reform Arizona’s rise in maternal mortality

From the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting

In 2019, federal officials dedicated more than $2 million to Arizona’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee as part of a national effort to confront alarmingly high rates of maternal deaths. The funding came with a mandate: Strengthen Arizona’s process for analyzing the cases of women who die during and shortly after pregnancy, and find ways to prevent future casualties.

An emergency department sign in Missoula, Montana on Thursday, December 12, 2024. With very few treatment options available in Montana, hospital emergency departments are often the only place people can go when they are experiencing alcohol withdrawal. However, patients often end up leaving without the medication they need to manage withdrawal symptoms and they typically aren’t referred to inpatient or outpatient treatment programs. Credit: John Stember

‘Not knowing where to go’: Montana’s sparse landscape for alcohol detox

From Montana Free Press

Thirty-three-year-old Whitefish resident Melanie Seefeldt has decided to stop drinking before. But, like many Montanans, Seefeldt knows a core truth about alcohol addiction. Wanting to stop is the easy part.

Araceli Aquino-Valdez, shown at her Yuma home on Dec. 17, 2024, struggled to find mental health care after experiencing postpartum depression following the birth of her first child. Photo by Izabella Mullady | AZCIR

Gaps in mental health training, rural access to care compound Arizona’s maternal mortality crisis

From Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting

Within hours of giving birth to her first child, Araceli Aquino-Valdez was engulfed by an intense sadness. She sobbed for days after arriving home, grieving the loss of her life before motherhood and feeling dismissed by her care providers.