She called the number on her syllabus offering counseling. No one picked up.

©Lisa Kurian Philip/WBEZ: Isabelle Dizon contacted her campus counseling center when she hit a low point during her sophomore year of college, but never heard back. Now a junior at the University of Illinois at Chicago, she hopes the school hires someone at the center to, at the very least, pick up the phone.

High need, low accessibility: Oglethorpe County residents face barriers to mental health care, even as teens and schools are willing to have the conversation

©Navya Shukla/The Oglethorpe Echo: Katie Edwards, a counselor at Oglethorpe County Elementary School, helps third-grader Londyn Wilson with a work- sheet during a guidance lesson last month. The lessons are regularly held to guide students' empathy, emotion regulation, perseverance and more.

For many Black sickle cell patients, care must reach deeper

©Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian: Sickle cell patient Alexis Tappan, right, is checked out by Rana Cooper on at the Methodist Hospital Cancer Institute and Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center. Memphis is home to one of the nation’s largest populations of adults living with sickle cell disease.

PA’s controversial mental health law on involuntary treatment stands to get a test run more than 3 years after its passing.

©Adobe Stock/Photo illustration: Natasha Vicens/PublicSource
©Adobe Stock/Photo illustration: Natasha Vicens/PublicSource

PublicSource, July 5, 2022, by Juliette Rihl: Paul and Christine, of Montgomery County, know what it feels like to helplessly watch their child’s mental health deteriorate.

After two hospitalizations in 2020 and 2021 for mental health crises, their 30-year-old son stopped taking his medication and following other aspects of his treatment plan. He rarely leaves his room, doesn’t make eye contact and goes days without bathing, Paul said — all symptoms of the early stages of psychosis.

“We’re still in crisis. Every day is [a] crisis,” said Paul, who has requested his last name be withheld to protect their family’s identity.

Paul and Christine believe their son, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2020 and, later, unspecified psychosis, might be more likely to comply with treatment if it were mandated by a court. But for now, the only thing they can do is watch his condition worsen.

There’s a three-year-old Pennsylvania law in place that the family thinks could help him, but it has never been used, according to the state Department of Human Services.

In some counties, though, that’s about to change. Five counties across the state — Bucks and Dauphin, along with Carbon, Monroe and Pike, which operate their mental health services together — are gearing up to launch Pennsylvania’s first assisted outpatient treatment pilot programs by 2023, if not sooner, thanks to grant funds provided by the state.

Read more at PublicSource here.

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