From Our Newsroom Partners
Jails fail to accommodate people with mental illness. In some cases, it’s a civil rights violation.
WITF, by Brett Sholtis, November 14, 2022: As a note of disclosure, WITF and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press are challenging in court Bucks County’s refusal to release a video of an incident involving Kimberly Stringer while she was in Bucks County Correctional Facility. Months before her…
Healing Through Culture: Increasing access to Native American practices to treat mental health
Cronkite News, story and video by Laura Bargfeld, audio story by Natalie Skowlund, November 4, 2022: HOUCK – In a remote hogan near the southern edge of the Navajo Nation, Wayne Wilson lights a fire, lays out eagle feathers and remembers his grandfather’s teachings. “He would talk to me and…
California is trying to house the homeless through a health insurance program. It worked for this man.
Los Angeles Times, by Lila Seidman, October 19, 2022: On a blistering hot Friday in August, Donald Winston, 56, lugged black trash bags stuffed with belongings up four flights of stairs to what had just become his first-ever home of his own. Winston sweated profusely as the plastic bags began…
Uvalde prompted Texas to start taking mental health funding for schools seriously. Is it enough?
Texas Public Radio, by Bonnie Petrie, September 27, 2022: [Petrie Dish Podcast] On a sweet, sunny spring Tuesday, children across the state were preparing for summer break, feeling that giddy rush that comes to kids in those last, loose days of the school year when unstructured hours of summer fun…
Texas bans many proven tools for helping drug users. Advocates are handing them out anyway.
The Texas Tribune, by Sneha Dey, October 11, 2022: HOUSTON — Thirty minutes before a punk show this summer, Claudia Dambra set up a table and taped to it a tablecloth she had hand-painted with broad, white brushstrokes. The banner read, “PUNK NOT DEATH.” As people flooded into the Houston…
“It’s destroying me”: Storm after storm, climate change increases strain on Texans’ mental health
The Texas Tribune, September 8, 2022, by Erin Douglas: HOUSTON — The first thing Dana Jones, 61, tells you to do when you enter her gray-blue house in Melrose Park is walk along the off-white tile, up and down, through her dining room, while she watches carefully for your reaction….
There’s Free Mental Health Help For Crime Victims, But Providers Say Bureaucracy Gets In The Way
SCPR/KPCC, Sep 9, 2022, by Robert Garrova: About three years ago, a Southern California resident we’ll call Jane —we’re not using her real name because of a pending trial and security concerns— and her husband found out their child had been assaulted. “Your world is rocked. We couldn’t sleep for…
Youth access to mental health care improved under Jake’s Law, but persistent barriers hamper its reach
Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting (AZCIR), September 1, 2022, by Shaena Montanari and Maria Polletta: In March 2020, Gov. Doug Ducey signed into law a sweeping set of measures designed to help curb rising rates of suicide and expand access to mental health treatment for Arizona residents with and without…
Why is it so hard to find therapists who take insurance in Illinois?
Chicago Tribune, August 21, 2022, by Lisa Schencker: Meena Thiruvengadam faced a choice when her therapist stopped taking health insurance about a year ago. She could try to find someone else who would take her insurance, or she could pay her therapist — whom she trusted and had already been…
How Georgia’s new mental health law works
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 3, 2022, by Katherine Landergan: There’s a new law on the books that should make accessing treatment for mental illness and addiction much easier. But some proponents of the new law fear that many Georgia residents may not know about the change. That means patients could…