“Like many parents, I used the tools I had,” says Gerri Hobdy. Her son, Daniel, is a veteran who was struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder when the pandemic hit. His symptoms worsened. “I felt more terror, existential dread, and pressure sitting in that beige room than as a soldier,” Daniel
As the launch date of 988 quickly approached, the Missouri Department of Mental Health’s Division of Behavioral Health (DBH) staff reflected with writers Christy Malik and Nili Ezekiel on how the Vibrant Emotional Health 988 planning grant helped the division build out its crisis service pathways of care. “The (Vibrant)
In the ‘80, when Mary Ellen Copeland was in her forties, she spent time in a psychiatric unit at a Northern New Hampshire hospital. A doctor told her, “If you’re not okay now, the next time you come back, we’re going to do electric shock therapy.” She was familiar with
Fay Belham, aged 53, has experienced periods of depression throughout her life and plummeted into a severe postnatal depression after having twin boys in 2009. That’s when she became aware of the English mental health charity, Cambridgeshire, Peterborough and South Lincolnshire (CPSL) Mind, which she turned to for support and
In the 1930s, pediatrician and toxicologist Jay Arena began collecting data on poisoning cases and discovered that the lead cause of death for children was poisoning. “Children are naturally curious,” says Marsha Ford, emergency physician, medical toxicologist, and former president of the American Association of Poison Control Centers. “At the
Child and adolescent mental health providers and families are hopeful that 988 will help shift the crisis response for young people away from 911. However, Dr. Jeff Bostic says existing mental health systems have been primarily built for people ages 18 to 65. The same is true for mental health
When Dr. Charles T. Browning and Lisa St. George started developing The Fusion Model in 2019, they set out to combine seemingly resistant approaches by “fusing” best practices from the biomedical and recovery models. (St. George is Vice President of Peer Support and Empowerment at RI International, and Dr. Browning
When Congress amended the Communications Act of 1934, designating 988 as the nationwide three-digit number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, the language focused on suicide prevention and mental health crises. The landmark National Suicide Hotline Designation Act became public law in October 2020. States across the United States quickly
Eight years ago, Shana Palmieri worked at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, DC. The hospital’s emergency room was experiencing a massive spike in behavioral health patients. “Our numbers were doubling and then tripling,” she says. Correspondingly, the length of time people stayed in the emergency department—also commonly called “the
Developing statewide youth mobile crisis intervention services has been an iterative process, says Tim Marshall, director of Community Mental Health at the Connecticut Department of Children and Families. Today, the face-to-face service will soon be available 24-7, and their motto is “just go.” When the program began over a decade ago
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