A 12-year-old killed herself at a Spokane hospital that recently closed its youth psychiatric unit

Asha Joseph spoke at her 12-year-old sister's funeral on Tuesday. Sarah Niyimbona had been receiving psychiatric treatment at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center intermittently for eight months when she died by suicide at the hospital. Erick Doxey/InvestigateWest

Language lives on for tribes in Oklahoma despite determined erasure attempts

Martie Woothtakewahbitty teaches her students how to speak the Comanche language in a classroom at the Life Ready Center in Lawton on September 26, 2024.
Abigail Siatkowski
/KOSU

Mental health advocates fight stigma to curb conditions that can kill new moms in Georgia

The Dekalb-Gwinnett OB/GYN practice was the first in Georgia to sign up to participate with PEACE for Moms, a perinatal psychiatry and education program that consults with doctors, nurses, midwives and other clinicians across the state whose patients need help for a pregnancy related mental health condition. (WABE/Jess Mador)

It’s the most important part of addiction recovery — and often the most difficult to access

©Ellen Eldridge/GPB News: Brent Moore is the founder of Redeemed Living, a faith-based nonprofit for men in addiction recovery. The group seeks to build transitional housing for men in recovery on a 23-acre site, but neighboring residents are against the effort.
©Ellen Eldridge/GPB News: Brent Moore is the founder of Redeemed Living, a faith-based nonprofit for men in addiction recovery. The group seeks to build transitional housing for men in recovery on a 23-acre site, but neighboring residents are against the effort.

Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB), August 4, 2022, by Ellen Eldridge: Residents in rural South Georgia are adamantly fighting a zoning request — a faith-based nonprofit called Redeemed Living wants to build cabins for men in addiction recovery on 23 acres of local farmland. But the neighbors don’t want them living next door.

The goal, according to Redeemed Living, is to build a sober living community where a group of men will share space and help keep each other accountable as they rebuild their lives from addiction.

Randy Nichols, 56, spent 25 years in and out of drug rehabs before he finally made the commitment to “get clean.” He is now the executive director of Redeemed Living.

“When I came to Redeemed, I really didn’t have a place to go that was safe for me to build my life back up, save my money, get remarried and start to live again,” Nichols said. “On top of that, my son gets to come live with me, which is something I had given up on.”

The value of recovery and recovery-oriented systems of care is widely accepted by states, communities, health care providers, peers, families, researchers and advocates including the U.S. Surgeon General and the National Academy of Medicine.

But recovery from drug and alcohol addiction is tough.

Part of the reason people fighting the disease of addiction relapse, end up in the correctional justice system, or die is that they need a comprehensive recovery plan that is difficult to access without money.

Read more from Georgia Public Broadcasting (GPB) here.