When Steve Miccio’s family took him to a hospital in Dutchess County, New York, he was experiencing his first manic episode. “I went in ‘Steve,’” he says, “and came out of inpatient hospitalization broken.” He points out there was no mention of hope or recovery. “It was more about what
As the Covid variant Omicron surged across the United States, people in hard-hit communities were flooding nearby emergency rooms—some because they were sick with the virus, while others were in search of Covid tests. Dr. Benjamin Druss says emergency room use during times of crisis holds up a mirror to
In Northeast Oklahoma, there are nearly 6,000 “mental health machine” iPads in circulation. With just the press of a button, first responders, hospitals, and people in crisis can immediately connect face-to-face with the Grand Lake Mental Health Center crisis line. The Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic, which serves adults, children,
16-year-old Reina Chiang is the founder of u matter apparel, a Maryland nonprofit that creates welcome packages for teens in crisis enrolled in Care and Connections for Families, a local in-home stabilization program. Each care package includes a tie-dye sweatshirt with “u matter” printed across it and mental health resources. “I
People in psychiatric crisis are often stuck in emergency rooms for hours or days waiting for placement, says Ted Lutterman, senior director of government and commercial research at the NASMHPD Research Institute (NRI). In other cases, there’s nowhere for them to go. Or worse, there are openings but no systemized
When an ambulance is called to the scene of a crisis in the United States, no matter the type, there are a limited number of places it can go next. Emergency ground ambulance services can transport to a hospital, skilled nursing facility, or a dialysis center. More often than not,
It started with an open letter in 2015 from Sheree Lowe, vice-president of behavioral health for the California Hospital Association: “California, like the nation, is struggling to ensure individuals with a suspected/potential mental illness are able to receive a timely psychiatric evaluation and access to an appropriate level of treatment, if
Conversations in communities across the nation, whether in jails or inpatient hospitalization, look something like this: “If we release arrestees or discharge patients, where will they go?” Elizabeth Sinclair Hancq and John Snook, colleagues at the Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC), say that at every turn, during COVID-19, no one knows
In the early 1990s, New Hampshire was rated number one in the country for community mental health programs. Peggy Straw, the founder of NAMI New Hampshire, responded by saying to the press that wasn’t much of an accomplishment, considering the status of mental healthcare in the United States at the
Elinore F. McCance-Katz, M.D., Ph.D. Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use at SAMHSA, says that the report “finally offers our communities true National Guidelines for Crisis Care within a user-friendly Best Practice Toolkit.”
Sign up to read our latest articles and
participate in the 988 Crisis Learning
Community Jam