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The people of Fayette County, Ky., reportedly have experienced five suicides by children in the last year. The latest suicide occurred several weeks ago and involved a 12-year-old girl. This followed the suicides of children aged 10, 11, 13, and 14 years.
The deaths are not related, and there seems to be no connection to race or gender. All involved hanging, and one child might have been bullied.
The cases reflect a disturbing trend in Kentucky and across the country. In 2015, 25% of suicides of children under 17 years in Kentucky involved those aged 10-14, a 14% increase from 4 years earlier. The percentage of 6th-grade students who have thought about or planned their suicide also has climbed in recent years.
Fayette County Coroner Gary W. Ginn said the deaths in Kentucky provide another example of how events in life that might be less traumatic to adults can cause mental anguish for children, anguish which can lead some to take their own lives.
“We should be very worried to have this many cases, but we should not be hopeless,“ said Susan H. Pollack, MD, a pediatrician at the University of Kentucky Children’s Hospital, Lexington, in an interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader. She added that resources and programs are available but that stronger support systems focusing on youth are needed.
“Our families have limited options when their child needs a higher level of care. ... Local agencies often have a wait list,” Fayette County Public Schools spokeswoman Lisa Deffendall said in the article. “We have made referrals and seen it take weeks for children to get the help they need. Where do families turn when their child is in crisis? Who provides care when school is not in session?”
Rural Arizona facing crisis
Living in rural areas can prove isolating, and gaining access to health care, including mental health care, can be challenging. A segment presented on KOLD News 13 in Tucson provided yet another examples of the mental health crisis in rural America.
Cochise County is an area of about 6,200 square miles in the southeast corner of Arizona. The area, which is about eight times bigger than New York City, is home to about 125,000 people. For those with mental health issues, it’s a bleak place to live, with only two psychiatrists available and no mental health facility.
“It’s as if we got a fire going that we can’t put out,” said James P. Reed, DO, in an interview. He is one of the two psychiatrists practicing in the county. In the last 2 months alone, 64 new people have sought his help, and he has had to turn many away.
Dr. Reed has been practicing in the country for 35 years, which gives him a longer-term perspective. “It’s so much worse now. I don’t know what it is, if it’s a consequence of our society and the direction it’s going. I just can’t put my finger on it.”
The main reason behind the paucity of mental health professionals comes down to economics. Burdened with student loan debts after graduation from medical school, the low salaries of rural positions cripple the recruitment of psychiatrists and other medical professionals.
In Cochise County, as elsewhere, the main refuge for people with mental illness is jail. “We have people in there [who] really shouldn’t be in there,” said Cochise County Sheriff Mark J. Dannels. “These people need special help that I can’t provide to them. It’s almost a misjustice to have them in our jail. Unfortunately, there’s no other place to put them.”
Perils of involuntary mental health holds
South Dakota is one of five states where jailing people with mental illness is part of a deliberate strategy, and the state’s new governor wants to change the practice.
“They’re not criminals,” Gov. Kristi Noem said in an article published in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. “They’re having a crisis at a point in time when they need to be observed, but unfortunately, in a lot of communities, that’s the only option that folks have.”
The article cited the case of Nick Johnson, a 14-year-old whose mental health struggles include the loss of control that can include aggressiveness. Although not charged with any offense, the response had been stints in the Minnehaha County Juvenile Detention Center. “It feels like I’m in prison,” Nick said. “Why would a kid have to go through that?”
National advocacy groups have criticized the practice of imprisoning people with mental illness, and local jail officials have complained that their facilities have not been designed to deliver mental health treatment. “If you look at it from a strictly medical perspective, being in a jail setting is almost guaranteed to make somebody’s mental health crisis worse, not better,” said Lisa Dailey, legislative and policy counsel for the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national nonprofit that surveys and ranks states for their mental health policies. “It’s the worst possible thing you could do.” The report said the other states that take this approach toward people with mental illness are Texas, Wyoming, New Mexico, and North Dakota.
Cutbacks may hit recovery centers
Idaho’s nine crisis centers are in peril in the first year of the administration of Gov. Brad Little. The centers, located in nine of the state’s cities, collectively had requested about $890,000 from the Idaho Millennium Fund that would enable them to stabilize precarious financing and improve outreach efforts in surrounding rural communities.
However, as the Idaho Statesman reported, the funding request did not make it to the governor’s budget recommendation for 2020. Instead, the governor intends to use the Millennium Fund funds to expand Medicaid coverage. The consequence of the lack of state financial support could be the shuttering of all nine centers. If that happens, it would be much harder for those in the throes of or recovering from addiction or mental health issues to find the support they need.
“[The centers’] continued survival has been something of a miracle already,” said Norma Jaeger, executive director of Recovery Idaho. The organization had submitted the funding request on behalf of the nine centers. “Hopefully, a better funding solution is on the horizon,” said Ms. Jaeger.
Some in government disagree with that view, contending that the ongoing use of the Millennium Fund was never in the plans and that the centers were expected to seek other nongovernmental sources of funding. This tact is contrary to the traditional state funding of mental health and substance abuse programs. The legality of the move is being considered by the state Supreme Court.
Mental health and religious faith
A recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer related the downsides and upsides of religious belief in the struggle against depression. The article discussed Yashi Brown, who at age 20, dealt with a bout of depression that led to manic episodes and contemplation of suicide. To her dismay, Ms. Brown found that her Jehovah’s Witness faith community was of little help.
Twenty years later, Ms. Brown, who now works as a mental health advocate in Los Angeles, better understands why relying on the faith’s teachings did not work. “I was in the throes of a manic episode,” she said. “I didn’t even have the tools to say a prayer.”
Ms. Brown’s experience highlights the burden faced by some religious traditions in helping church members with mental health issues. Instead of receiving tangible care from mental health professionals, those who are suffering can be told to rely on faith alone. The fallout is especially profound for African Americans like Ms. Brown, research shows. African Americans are 20% more likely to experience serious psychological distress than their white counterparts but are less likely to seek help – even if they can financially afford it.
The racial/ethnic disparities in health care that affect African Americans partly explains this reticence to seek treatment. Another factor is the multigenerational acceptance among some African Americans of mental trauma as a normal part of life, according to Meagan McLeod, a pastor and spiritual care director for Friends Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in northeast Philadelphia. “The idea is, if prayer worked for our ancestors when we were in slavery, then prayer has to be able to work now,” said Ms. McLeod.
Meanwhile, the article said, mental health professionals and clergy think that faith and mental health treatment “can – and should – work together. Research suggests higher levels of religiosity or spirituality are associated with lower rates of depression, anxiety, substance use disorder, and suicidal thoughts. Prayer can have the same calming effects as meditation,” such as both lowering blood pressure and respiratory rates. Incorporating religious approaches into the mental health treatment of African American patients might be particularly helpful, the article said.
The people of Fayette County, Ky., reportedly have experienced five suicides by children in the last year. The latest suicide occurred several weeks ago and involved a 12-year-old girl. This followed the suicides of children aged 10, 11, 13, and 14 years.
The deaths are not related, and there seems to be no connection to race or gender. All involved hanging, and one child might have been bullied.
The cases reflect a disturbing trend in Kentucky and across the country. In 2015, 25% of suicides of children under 17 years in Kentucky involved those aged 10-14, a 14% increase from 4 years earlier. The percentage of 6th-grade students who have thought about or planned their suicide also has climbed in recent years.
Fayette County Coroner Gary W. Ginn said the deaths in Kentucky provide another example of how events in life that might be less traumatic to adults can cause mental anguish for children, anguish which can lead some to take their own lives.
“We should be very worried to have this many cases, but we should not be hopeless,“ said Susan H. Pollack, MD, a pediatrician at the University of Kentucky Children’s Hospital, Lexington, in an interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader. She added that resources and programs are available but that stronger support systems focusing on youth are needed.
“Our families have limited options when their child needs a higher level of care. ... Local agencies often have a wait list,” Fayette County Public Schools spokeswoman Lisa Deffendall said in the article. “We have made referrals and seen it take weeks for children to get the help they need. Where do families turn when their child is in crisis? Who provides care when school is not in session?”
Rural Arizona facing crisis
Living in rural areas can prove isolating, and gaining access to health care, including mental health care, can be challenging. A segment presented on KOLD News 13 in Tucson provided yet another examples of the mental health crisis in rural America.
Cochise County is an area of about 6,200 square miles in the southeast corner of Arizona. The area, which is about eight times bigger than New York City, is home to about 125,000 people. For those with mental health issues, it’s a bleak place to live, with only two psychiatrists available and no mental health facility.
“It’s as if we got a fire going that we can’t put out,” said James P. Reed, DO, in an interview. He is one of the two psychiatrists practicing in the county. In the last 2 months alone, 64 new people have sought his help, and he has had to turn many away.
Dr. Reed has been practicing in the country for 35 years, which gives him a longer-term perspective. “It’s so much worse now. I don’t know what it is, if it’s a consequence of our society and the direction it’s going. I just can’t put my finger on it.”
The main reason behind the paucity of mental health professionals comes down to economics. Burdened with student loan debts after graduation from medical school, the low salaries of rural positions cripple the recruitment of psychiatrists and other medical professionals.
In Cochise County, as elsewhere, the main refuge for people with mental illness is jail. “We have people in there [who] really shouldn’t be in there,” said Cochise County Sheriff Mark J. Dannels. “These people need special help that I can’t provide to them. It’s almost a misjustice to have them in our jail. Unfortunately, there’s no other place to put them.”
Perils of involuntary mental health holds
South Dakota is one of five states where jailing people with mental illness is part of a deliberate strategy, and the state’s new governor wants to change the practice.
“They’re not criminals,” Gov. Kristi Noem said in an article published in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. “They’re having a crisis at a point in time when they need to be observed, but unfortunately, in a lot of communities, that’s the only option that folks have.”
The article cited the case of Nick Johnson, a 14-year-old whose mental health struggles include the loss of control that can include aggressiveness. Although not charged with any offense, the response had been stints in the Minnehaha County Juvenile Detention Center. “It feels like I’m in prison,” Nick said. “Why would a kid have to go through that?”
National advocacy groups have criticized the practice of imprisoning people with mental illness, and local jail officials have complained that their facilities have not been designed to deliver mental health treatment. “If you look at it from a strictly medical perspective, being in a jail setting is almost guaranteed to make somebody’s mental health crisis worse, not better,” said Lisa Dailey, legislative and policy counsel for the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national nonprofit that surveys and ranks states for their mental health policies. “It’s the worst possible thing you could do.” The report said the other states that take this approach toward people with mental illness are Texas, Wyoming, New Mexico, and North Dakota.
Cutbacks may hit recovery centers
Idaho’s nine crisis centers are in peril in the first year of the administration of Gov. Brad Little. The centers, located in nine of the state’s cities, collectively had requested about $890,000 from the Idaho Millennium Fund that would enable them to stabilize precarious financing and improve outreach efforts in surrounding rural communities.
However, as the Idaho Statesman reported, the funding request did not make it to the governor’s budget recommendation for 2020. Instead, the governor intends to use the Millennium Fund funds to expand Medicaid coverage. The consequence of the lack of state financial support could be the shuttering of all nine centers. If that happens, it would be much harder for those in the throes of or recovering from addiction or mental health issues to find the support they need.
“[The centers’] continued survival has been something of a miracle already,” said Norma Jaeger, executive director of Recovery Idaho. The organization had submitted the funding request on behalf of the nine centers. “Hopefully, a better funding solution is on the horizon,” said Ms. Jaeger.
Some in government disagree with that view, contending that the ongoing use of the Millennium Fund was never in the plans and that the centers were expected to seek other nongovernmental sources of funding. This tact is contrary to the traditional state funding of mental health and substance abuse programs. The legality of the move is being considered by the state Supreme Court.
Mental health and religious faith
A recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer related the downsides and upsides of religious belief in the struggle against depression. The article discussed Yashi Brown, who at age 20, dealt with a bout of depression that led to manic episodes and contemplation of suicide. To her dismay, Ms. Brown found that her Jehovah’s Witness faith community was of little help.
Twenty years later, Ms. Brown, who now works as a mental health advocate in Los Angeles, better understands why relying on the faith’s teachings did not work. “I was in the throes of a manic episode,” she said. “I didn’t even have the tools to say a prayer.”
Ms. Brown’s experience highlights the burden faced by some religious traditions in helping church members with mental health issues. Instead of receiving tangible care from mental health professionals, those who are suffering can be told to rely on faith alone. The fallout is especially profound for African Americans like Ms. Brown, research shows. African Americans are 20% more likely to experience serious psychological distress than their white counterparts but are less likely to seek help – even if they can financially afford it.
The racial/ethnic disparities in health care that affect African Americans partly explains this reticence to seek treatment. Another factor is the multigenerational acceptance among some African Americans of mental trauma as a normal part of life, according to Meagan McLeod, a pastor and spiritual care director for Friends Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in northeast Philadelphia. “The idea is, if prayer worked for our ancestors when we were in slavery, then prayer has to be able to work now,” said Ms. McLeod.
Meanwhile, the article said, mental health professionals and clergy think that faith and mental health treatment “can – and should – work together. Research suggests higher levels of religiosity or spirituality are associated with lower rates of depression, anxiety, substance use disorder, and suicidal thoughts. Prayer can have the same calming effects as meditation,” such as both lowering blood pressure and respiratory rates. Incorporating religious approaches into the mental health treatment of African American patients might be particularly helpful, the article said.
The people of Fayette County, Ky., reportedly have experienced five suicides by children in the last year. The latest suicide occurred several weeks ago and involved a 12-year-old girl. This followed the suicides of children aged 10, 11, 13, and 14 years.
The deaths are not related, and there seems to be no connection to race or gender. All involved hanging, and one child might have been bullied.
The cases reflect a disturbing trend in Kentucky and across the country. In 2015, 25% of suicides of children under 17 years in Kentucky involved those aged 10-14, a 14% increase from 4 years earlier. The percentage of 6th-grade students who have thought about or planned their suicide also has climbed in recent years.
Fayette County Coroner Gary W. Ginn said the deaths in Kentucky provide another example of how events in life that might be less traumatic to adults can cause mental anguish for children, anguish which can lead some to take their own lives.
“We should be very worried to have this many cases, but we should not be hopeless,“ said Susan H. Pollack, MD, a pediatrician at the University of Kentucky Children’s Hospital, Lexington, in an interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader. She added that resources and programs are available but that stronger support systems focusing on youth are needed.
“Our families have limited options when their child needs a higher level of care. ... Local agencies often have a wait list,” Fayette County Public Schools spokeswoman Lisa Deffendall said in the article. “We have made referrals and seen it take weeks for children to get the help they need. Where do families turn when their child is in crisis? Who provides care when school is not in session?”
Rural Arizona facing crisis
Living in rural areas can prove isolating, and gaining access to health care, including mental health care, can be challenging. A segment presented on KOLD News 13 in Tucson provided yet another examples of the mental health crisis in rural America.
Cochise County is an area of about 6,200 square miles in the southeast corner of Arizona. The area, which is about eight times bigger than New York City, is home to about 125,000 people. For those with mental health issues, it’s a bleak place to live, with only two psychiatrists available and no mental health facility.
“It’s as if we got a fire going that we can’t put out,” said James P. Reed, DO, in an interview. He is one of the two psychiatrists practicing in the county. In the last 2 months alone, 64 new people have sought his help, and he has had to turn many away.
Dr. Reed has been practicing in the country for 35 years, which gives him a longer-term perspective. “It’s so much worse now. I don’t know what it is, if it’s a consequence of our society and the direction it’s going. I just can’t put my finger on it.”
The main reason behind the paucity of mental health professionals comes down to economics. Burdened with student loan debts after graduation from medical school, the low salaries of rural positions cripple the recruitment of psychiatrists and other medical professionals.
In Cochise County, as elsewhere, the main refuge for people with mental illness is jail. “We have people in there [who] really shouldn’t be in there,” said Cochise County Sheriff Mark J. Dannels. “These people need special help that I can’t provide to them. It’s almost a misjustice to have them in our jail. Unfortunately, there’s no other place to put them.”
Perils of involuntary mental health holds
South Dakota is one of five states where jailing people with mental illness is part of a deliberate strategy, and the state’s new governor wants to change the practice.
“They’re not criminals,” Gov. Kristi Noem said in an article published in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. “They’re having a crisis at a point in time when they need to be observed, but unfortunately, in a lot of communities, that’s the only option that folks have.”
The article cited the case of Nick Johnson, a 14-year-old whose mental health struggles include the loss of control that can include aggressiveness. Although not charged with any offense, the response had been stints in the Minnehaha County Juvenile Detention Center. “It feels like I’m in prison,” Nick said. “Why would a kid have to go through that?”
National advocacy groups have criticized the practice of imprisoning people with mental illness, and local jail officials have complained that their facilities have not been designed to deliver mental health treatment. “If you look at it from a strictly medical perspective, being in a jail setting is almost guaranteed to make somebody’s mental health crisis worse, not better,” said Lisa Dailey, legislative and policy counsel for the Treatment Advocacy Center, a national nonprofit that surveys and ranks states for their mental health policies. “It’s the worst possible thing you could do.” The report said the other states that take this approach toward people with mental illness are Texas, Wyoming, New Mexico, and North Dakota.
Cutbacks may hit recovery centers
Idaho’s nine crisis centers are in peril in the first year of the administration of Gov. Brad Little. The centers, located in nine of the state’s cities, collectively had requested about $890,000 from the Idaho Millennium Fund that would enable them to stabilize precarious financing and improve outreach efforts in surrounding rural communities.
However, as the Idaho Statesman reported, the funding request did not make it to the governor’s budget recommendation for 2020. Instead, the governor intends to use the Millennium Fund funds to expand Medicaid coverage. The consequence of the lack of state financial support could be the shuttering of all nine centers. If that happens, it would be much harder for those in the throes of or recovering from addiction or mental health issues to find the support they need.
“[The centers’] continued survival has been something of a miracle already,” said Norma Jaeger, executive director of Recovery Idaho. The organization had submitted the funding request on behalf of the nine centers. “Hopefully, a better funding solution is on the horizon,” said Ms. Jaeger.
Some in government disagree with that view, contending that the ongoing use of the Millennium Fund was never in the plans and that the centers were expected to seek other nongovernmental sources of funding. This tact is contrary to the traditional state funding of mental health and substance abuse programs. The legality of the move is being considered by the state Supreme Court.
Mental health and religious faith
A recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer related the downsides and upsides of religious belief in the struggle against depression. The article discussed Yashi Brown, who at age 20, dealt with a bout of depression that led to manic episodes and contemplation of suicide. To her dismay, Ms. Brown found that her Jehovah’s Witness faith community was of little help.
Twenty years later, Ms. Brown, who now works as a mental health advocate in Los Angeles, better understands why relying on the faith’s teachings did not work. “I was in the throes of a manic episode,” she said. “I didn’t even have the tools to say a prayer.”
Ms. Brown’s experience highlights the burden faced by some religious traditions in helping church members with mental health issues. Instead of receiving tangible care from mental health professionals, those who are suffering can be told to rely on faith alone. The fallout is especially profound for African Americans like Ms. Brown, research shows. African Americans are 20% more likely to experience serious psychological distress than their white counterparts but are less likely to seek help – even if they can financially afford it.
The racial/ethnic disparities in health care that affect African Americans partly explains this reticence to seek treatment. Another factor is the multigenerational acceptance among some African Americans of mental trauma as a normal part of life, according to Meagan McLeod, a pastor and spiritual care director for Friends Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in northeast Philadelphia. “The idea is, if prayer worked for our ancestors when we were in slavery, then prayer has to be able to work now,” said Ms. McLeod.
Meanwhile, the article said, mental health professionals and clergy think that faith and mental health treatment “can – and should – work together. Research suggests higher levels of religiosity or spirituality are associated with lower rates of depression, anxiety, substance use disorder, and suicidal thoughts. Prayer can have the same calming effects as meditation,” such as both lowering blood pressure and respiratory rates. Incorporating religious approaches into the mental health treatment of African American patients might be particularly helpful, the article said.