Category Access to Treatment

Beware: Your Mental Health Condition Could Interfere with Your Holiday Travel Plans

airportDo you have loved ones arriving from another country expecting entry into the United States? If they have a documented mental illness, they might want to think twice. Read a summary of an article from the New York Times describing the discrimination people have faced from the United States Customs and Border Protection.

Shameful Profiling of the Mentally Ill by Andrew Solomon was published December 7, 2013 in the New York Times. It describes the mental health discrimination that citizens from other countries face when entering the United States. Sharing several examples, Mr...

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Why Aren’t Those Who Need Mental Health Care Able to Receive it When Needed Most?

stockvault-locked99163Over and over again we hear of tragedies that might have been averted if only people had access to quality mental health care.  The Daily Beast does an excellent job of covering the latest such tragedy involving Gus Deeds stabbing his father, Virginia politician Creigh Deeds.  According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch Gus Deeds did receive a psychiatric evaluation on Monday, the day before the stabbing, but was release due to lack of a psychiatric bed across the entire western Virginia region.

In Tennessee the department of mental health is evaluating their budget for the next several years...

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Why Communities Matter In Addressing Mental Health

kennedy forum logo

In 1996, then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton elevated the saying, “It takes a village,” in talking about the various outside influences of caring for and raising children. All politics aside, the impact of thousands of communities in treating patients with mental illnesses cannot be overstated – everyone has a role to play and how we go about addressing these illnesses will have far-reaching societal implications. This was the primary focus of a morning panel discussion at today’s Kennedy Forum in Boston.

Collaboration doesn’t exist without education. Panel Moderator Chelsea Clint...

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Your Signature Can Help Protect Mental Health Recovery Programs

National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery & National Disability Rights Network

Advocates are actively seeking grassroots support to protect funding for programs that advance mental health recovery and civil rights protection and advocacy. Here, Care for Your Mind shares an “Action Alert” with links so you can learn more and take action.

Congress will soon make decisions that could slash funding for—and restrict access to—state mental health consumer networks, national mental health technical assistance centers, and human and civil rights protections for people with serious mental heal...

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Can Erasing Stigma Lead to Earlier Acceptance of Treatment?

steve
Today, on National Depression Screening Day, CFYM reader, Steve, shares his story of emerging from depression onto a new life path of mental health advocacy. Erasing the social stigma of depressive disorders, he believes, will pave the way to earlier use of depression screenings and encourage people to seek and accept treatment.

After a distinguished career in the Navy, I was proud to join the public sector utilizing the immeasurable discipline and knowledge I had acquired serving in our country’s military. I enrolled in a rigorous doctor of education program at Vanderbilt University with an emphasis in Human Resource Development. I was well on the way to establishing a name for myself as an independent management consultant, focusing on organizational development, prospective employee screening, and middle-management development.

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Improving the Quality of Life for People with Mental Illness

CFYM Note: Mental Health Advocate Profile posts allow CFYM to highlight an organization’s broader range of advocacy interests and concerns. Today’s profile features the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

Any organizations seeking to be featured in a CFYM Mental Health Advocate Profile should submit information about current legislative interests and activities to info@careforyourmind.org. We welcome your submissions!

nami

NAMI is a grassroots organization of individuals with mental illnesses, especially serious mental illnesses, their family members, and friends whose mission is to advocate for effective prevention, diagnosis, treatment, support, research, and recovery to improve the quality of life of persons of all ages who are affected by mental illnesses.

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Poll Results Enforces the Need for Specialized Care

aapgChristine M. deVries
Chief Executive Officer
American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry

Care for Your Mind is an excellent example of providing needed information to the public on late life mental illness. AAGP applauds the efforts of Care for Your Mind and its efforts on public education as well as encouraging dialogue through polls and other mechanisms on these critical issues.

The results of the recent poll by Care for Your Mind on mood disorders clearly confirms the need for a well-trained health care workforce to take care of the current and future generations of older adults with mood disorders. This same conclusion was reported by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in their report released last year entitled, The Mental Health and Substance Use Workforce for Older Adults: In Whose Hands? The IOM called for immediate action to promote research and incentivize training in geriatric mental health to adequately meet the needs of an elderly population expected to rise above 70 million people by 2030. We know the need is there, but now it is time to take action. It is critical that people contact their policymakers and urge them to eliminate the gaps in services to the elderly with mental illness including mood disorders by increasing access to quality mental health care and addressing the prevalent stigma associated with these diseases. The White House took a first step when they convened a National Conference on Mental Health in June of this year, but there needs to be more. We must now advocate to the US Congress on the need for a well prepared workforce to provide quality care for the older adults with mood disorders. Following are some specific legislative proposals that have been introduced in this session of Congress:

The Care for Your Mind poll enforces the need for health care professionals with specialized training to treat those individuals with mood disorders and other late life mental illnesses. There is a bill that has been introduced into the Senate that would promote teams of health care providers with this expertise to work with primary care providers.

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Mental Health Care for Older Adults: Survey Results to Date!

august18_2013In connection with our post, “Older Adults Need Specialized Mental Health Care” on July 2, we asked readers to answer a brief survey about mental health care for older people.

We figured it was a good time to bring you the results so far, and to invite you to participate in the survey.

Of all of the results, there were two items of particular interest to us at CFYM.

64.5% of respondents indicated that they know an older person who they believe has a mood disorder but who is not diagnosed or treated. We are hopeful that changes in care under the Affordable Care Act will help to remedy that deficiency, but it’s likely that it will take more than changes in the law. Many older adults will have to reconsider their perceptions of mental health, as well as their expectations of maintaining mental wellness and happiness during their later years. Also, their physicians need to learn more about the special mental health care needs of older adults.

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