From Our Newsroom Partners
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Overwhelmed with mental health calls, six rural sheriffs make their own plan for better response
From Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB)
Eurie Martin, 58, was walking alone on a rural two lane road in Washington County in 2017, when three deputies from the county sheriff’s office encountered him, responding to a suspicious person call. They didn’t know Martin had a history of mental illness and were not trained to handle people in crisis.
Cover-up Alleged in Pottawatomie County Jail Deaths
From Oklahoma Watch
Pottawatomie County jail officials apparently defied state laws and a judge’s order when they concealed information on the unexplained deaths of seven vulnerable detainees.
Improving college student mental health: Research on promising campus interventions
From The Journalist’s Resource
If you’re a journalist covering higher education in the U.S., you’ll likely be reporting this fall on what many healthcare professionals and researchers are calling a college student mental health crisis.
This Harris County program serves the most vulnerable. But it won’t bail them out of jail.
From Houston Landing
When a Houston police officer arrived at Richelle Morris’ group home in a quiet Greater Greenspoint cul-de-sac in October, she demanded to be taken to a mental hospital – or jail.
People with mental illness are more likely to die in jail. A new Oklahoma County program puts them in treatment instead
From The Frontier
After her arrest for a small amount of methamphetamine in 2017, U.S. Army veteran Krysten Gonzalez signed an Oklahoma County Mental Health Court contract agreeing to behavioral health treatment in exchange for the chance to stay out of prison.
How San Diego Is Rolling Out CARE Court
From the Voice of San Diego
San Diego County officials have until October to stand up a new system to compel people with certain serious mental illnesses into treatment.
LGBTQ+ kids in Colorado are struggling. Finding the right therapist is yet another hurdle.
From KUNC
Colorado’s LGBTQ+ youth are living with high rates of depression, stress and thoughts of self-harm, but finding treatment in Northern Colorado can be a challenge.
Mental Health Care Is Critical for Survivors of Violence. Access Is Another Story.
From California Health Report
Lisbet wondered if the victim advocate had made a mistake. Lisbet was at the Family Justice Center in San Diego, a social services agency for domestic violence survivors, trying to get help with basic needs like shelter and food after leaving her abusive husband. And she was being offered counseling.
Mental health disparities in older LGBTQ+ populations: A research roundup
From The Journalist’s Resource
In 2017, researchers estimated that 2.4% of the U.S. population 50 years and older identified as LGBTQ+, accounting for 2.7 million people. By 2060, they say, that number is expected to double to 5 million.
Families take drastic steps to help children in mental health crises
From The Center for Public Integrity
When Lisa Norris adopted her daughter Hannah out of foster care as a toddler in 2010, she never dreamed that a decade later she’d give up custody of the girl as a last-ditch effort to save her life.
Proven Schizophrenia Treatments Keep People in School, at Work and off the Street. Why Won’t Insurance Companies Cover Them?
From KQED
When Yvonne was walking across campus and heard someone calling her name, she stopped and looked around, but the other students flowed around her, oblivious. She continued on, then heard it again.
Jails fail to accommodate people with mental illness. In some cases, it’s a civil rights violation.
From WITF
Months before her arrest in April 2020, Kimberly Stringer had stopped showing up to get her regular injection of an antipsychotic drug. An artistic person, Stringer once planned to go to design school before a mental illness hijacked her life. For the past year, her medication had staved off the paranoia and disordered thinking that were symptoms of her illness. As the drug left her system, those fears and preoccupations returned.
