From Our Newsroom Partners
You Report an Unhoused Person in a Mental Health Crisis. This Is What Happens Next
San Francisco Public Press by Madison Alvarado and Yesica Prado, May 7, 2024: Myriad city teams respond to people in severe distress, who are often homeless and return to the streets after receiving services. In San Francisco, it is not uncommon to cross paths with a person experiencing homelessness in…
The Often Vicious Cycle Through SF’s Strained Mental Health Care and Detention System
San Francisco Public Press by Madison Alvarado and Yesica Prado, May 6, 2024: Dispatchers received at least 24,000 calls about mental health crises last year. Often, responders couldn’t find the people in distress. On a windy day last fall, a slender man stood on a corner of the bustling intersection…
Deadly Failure: A Sailor Was in Crisis. Her Command Kept the Pressure on Anyway
Voice of San Diego by Will Huntsberry, April 2, 2024: March 6, 2018, was another mild and sunny day in San Diego. Petty Officer 2nd Class Tiara Gray, who was 21 years old, was somewhere off the coast, onboard the USS Essex, writing in her journal. It was 27 days…
She called the number on her syllabus offering counseling. No one picked up.
WBEZ by Lisa Kurian Philip, March 21, 2024: Isabelle Dizon describes her transition to college as “messy.” She went from a public high school to a private art school that was far less diverse and cost too much, she said. The expense was stressful and she couldn’t connect with her…
High need, low accessibility: Oglethorpe County residents face barriers to mental health care, even as teens and schools are willing to have the conversation
The Oglethorpe Echo/the Cox Institute’s Journalism Writing Lab at the University of Georgia by Navya Shukla and Sydney Rainwater, March 21, 2024: Sonja Thompson Roach remembers the moment last year when a photographer took photos and interviewed her son and his friends for a Time magazine story on mental health…
For many Black sickle cell patients, care must reach deeper
The Daily Memphian, by Aisling Mäki March 5, 2024: In Memphis, Black patients with an inherited blood disorder carry trauma from the dismissal of their chronic pain and severity of symptoms. “Sickle cell is a very aggressive, traumatizing and difficult disease to live with,” said April Ward-McGrory, 42, a lifelong…
Mental health issues complicate treatment for sickle cell patients
The Daily Memphian, by Aisling Mäki March 5, 2024: April Ward-McGrory is a sickle cell patient, double amputee and advocate for those living with sickle cell disease.Black patients in Memphis with sickle cell disease often report being misdiagnosed or treated as drug seekers when they show up in emergency rooms…
When children are rushed to the hospital in Memphis, trauma counselors are there waiting for them
The Institute for Public Service Reporting, by David Waters, March 6, 2024: An errant bullet fired from a street in South Memphis last year hit 16-year-old Evan sitting inside his home watching TV. The bullet tore a hole through his arm and leg. Instantly, before anyone could call 911 —…
Oklahoma sends a growing number of kids with complex needs out of state for treatment
The Frontier, by Kayla Branch, February 5, 2024: The state lacks options for kids with developmental disabilities and mental health needs. Oklahoma spent more than $5 million to send 49 kids out of state for treatment in the past year. Amber Boyer spent early mornings last spring crawling out of…
Poor access to mental health care leaves Georgia children who need a psychiatrist in the lurch
Georgia Public Broadcasting by Ellen Eldridge, January 22, 2024: When Layken Edenfield was little, her moods would switch quickly, her mother, Teresa Edenfield remembers. “One minute she’d be happy and laughing, and the next minute she’d be crying her eyes out,” Edenfield said. “She was really hypersensitive about certain things…
Alcohol addiction treatment is available in Colorado, but people struggle to get the help they need
The Denver Post by Meg Wingerter, January 4, 2024: Some people with addiction face insurance hurdles, unaware of options beyond AA or rehab. Warren Musselman credits his post-alcohol life to two things: finally finding a program that offered counseling he could connect with, and deciding he just couldn’t suffer through…
Beer and wine became more widely available in Colorado even as drinking deaths rose
The Denver Post by Meg Wingerter, January 4, 2024: Alcohol is socially acceptable and can be hard to avoid for people in recovery. Five years ago, a workgroup tasked with finding ways to reduce Colorado’s rate of drinking-related deaths — among the highest in the country — issued a simple…
Colorado has some of the lowest alcohol taxes and highest drinking deaths. That’s no coincidence, experts say.
The Denver Post by Meg Wingerter, January 4, 2024: Researchers say higher prices can be effective in reducing alcohol consumption. Colorado’s taxes on alcohol are among the lowest in the country, and even though the state consistently ranks as one of the worst for drinking deaths, lawmakers have shown little interest…
Colorado alcohol deaths surged 60% in 4 years, but there’s been no public outcry or push to save lives
The Denver Post by Meg Wingerter, January 4, 2024: When fentanyl deaths spiked, the state responded. When alcohol deaths did the same, Colorado was silent. Fatal drug overdoses had been slowly rising for a decade, but when the number of Coloradans killed by fentanyl soared during the first two years…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…