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Recovery Update features the most recent articles from throughout the field of psychiatric rehabilitation. Stay up to date on all the latest mental health news through this weekly newsletter.
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Kelly Marie Wofford is a survivor of a suicide attempt who founded Front Seat Life and created the Color of Crazy Series.
"Programs like the Color exist to dispel that myth," said Wofford. "That depression has a look, that suicide has a look, that bipolar has a look. We're just people that have a diagnosis."
Mariam Abdullah had dreamed of becoming a firefighter, but that dream ended only six weeks after her 18th birthday when she died by suicide in her prison cell, seven months before her scheduled release date. It wasn't an isolated incident. Abdullah's death was part of a pattern of neglecting inmates with mental illnesses in the Arizona prison system while under the care of its private health care contractor, Corizon Health, Inc.
Some Mental-Health Professionals Find It Hard To Seek Help — And Can Suffer From Even Greater Stigma
People who have dedicated their professional lives to helping others don’t always seek out the help they need themselves.
In that respect, experts say, they’re not so different from the average person.
The issue of mental health in the helping professions came into sharp focus last month with the suicide death of Gregory Eells, the University of Pennsylvania’s head of counseling and psychological services.
Elizabeth Warren has finally released her health care plan. She calls it Medicare for All, but as Tim Higginbotham and Natalie Shure have both noted, she leaves out any number of crucial details about eliminating premiums, co-pays, and deductibles, or about providing dental, vision, hearing, and mental care.
My concern is different. The wording on Senator Warren’s website looks to me like it does answer the question of whether mental health is included — and that the answer is “no.”
California’s new conservatorship law recently took effect with staff members in San Francisco’s Public Health Offices are already working on its implementation.
However, city residents will probably not see any immediate changes on the street as the law begins to be enforced.
Alex Briscoe didn’t know much about how local governments pay for mental health care when he joined Alameda County’s Health Care Services Agency in 2004. But he knew there was a problem.
Briscoe had come from a job at Children’s Hospital Oakland where he saw kids routinely turn up in the emergency room in serious psychological distress. These children had nowhere else to go. There was no support system to help kids who’d experienced trauma, or to catch mental health problems before they escalated, Briscoe recalled.
North Texas is in the throes of a “behavioral health crisis,” according to local health care professionals. Since December 2017, the closure of several behavioral health facilities has resulted in the loss of more than 280 psychiatric care beds throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
During a presentation about the future of psychiatry at a meeting of mental health professionals, Arshya Vahabzadeh, MD, asked his audience to raise their hands if they were already practicing telepsychiatry.
Scattered around the packed convention center ballroom, just a dozen or a few more participants raised their hands.
The Commission has been hard at work improving the paths to PRA Certification! Fast-track pathways now allow those with an existing PRA credential to more easily seek dual-certification, and CPRP and CFRP pathways have been aligned to simplify the process for candidates. In addition, Eligibility Requirements have been adjusted to allow candidates to take their certification exam before meeting the work experience requirements for their selected pathway (those that pass will become official certified upon completion of work experience requirement).
PRA Certification examinations are now available 365 days per year! Candidates applying to sit for an exam will no longer need to choose a narrow testing window, allowing more flexibility for your busy schedules. After you sit for an exam, your results will be processed and score reports will be sent around the 15th of the month following your attempt. Digital wall certificates and ID cards will be emailed less frequently; new CPRPs and CFRPs should expect to receive these via email within two months of their score report.
Suicide prevention efforts have increased in recent decades, along with rates of suicide in the United States. Findings reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a 24% increase in suicides between 1999 and 2014 among males and females of all age groups. Concurrently, there has been expanding legalization of physician-assisted death (PAD) for mentally competent adults with terminal illness and a prognosis of ≤6 months to live. Maine is the most recent state to pass such legislation, becoming the ninth jurisdiction to allow the practice in addition to the District of Columbia, New Jersey, Vermont, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Colorado, California, and Montana.
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