News

In order to highlight pockets of excellence across the country, the NNED selects a partner organization to highlight once a month. ConnectFamilias has been selected as the Partner of the Month for October for Hispanic Heritage Month.

ConnectFamilias Family Center, mission is to build healthy communities where children and families can thrive and succeed. ConnectFamilias firmly believes that children flourish when their families are strong, and parents thrive when they live in environments that support their success and enable them to become productive citizens.

Some of the programs and services that are currently offered:

• Child and Youth enrichment
• Supportive Environment
• College Training
• Workforce Training
• Safety Training

Learn more about ConnectFamilias and its mission to build healthy communities.

View a list of previous NNED Partners of the Month.

In order to highlight pockets of excellence across the country, the NNED selects a partner organization to highlight once a month. DiDi Hirsch has been selected as the Partner of the Month for September in awareness of Suicide Prevention Month.

Didi Hirsch’s Suicide Prevention Center is the nation’s first and a model for suicide prevention centers across the globe. The center served and trained more than 175,000 individuals in 2022. The Survivors of Suicide Attempts Manual for Support Groups curriculum for treating people who have attempted suicide has been shared with more than 2,200 mental health professionals in 50 states and 54 countries.

Some of the programs and services that are currently offered:

• Crisis Line
• Therapy & Support Groups
• Training Programs
• Mental Health

Learn more about the DiDi Hirsch and its mission in suicide prevention.

View a list of previous NNED Partners of the Month.

Tribal nations and Urban Indian Health Organizations will receive $6.5 million in one-time grants for behavioral health services in Native American communities, the Governor’s Office announced Wednesday.

The Behavioral Health System for Future Generations Commission recommended the investment, the latest allocation of $300 million in funding to support behavioral health and developmental disabilities systems in Montana.

The Montana Consortium for Urban Indian Health promotes the health and well-being of American Indians and Alaskan Natives in urban areas. It is dedicated to supporting Urban Indian Organizations in their mission to deliver healthcare services to these communities across Montana.

The Montana Consortium for Urban Indian Health was founded in 2021 and is the second consortium in the nation with five member organizations, according to a spokesperson: All Nations Health Center (Missoula), Indian Family Health Clinic (Great Falls), Butte Native Wellness Center, Billings Urban Indian Health and Wellness Center, and Helena Indian Alliance.

The news release noted the $300 million investment was “a central component” of the governor’s budget, and in 2023, he signed House Bill 872, which allocated the funds.

Read more at DailyMontanan.com.

On Aug. 1, Simone Biles, who was raised in Spring, Texas, vaulted into history in Paris by earning her eighth Olympic gold medal.

Even as the 27-year-old nimbly navigated balance beams and uneven bars, defying gravity and even ankle injury as she leaped and spun midair, being in peak physical condition wasn’t her only challenge. The just-released Netflix docuseries Simone Biles Rising reveals that the most daunting obstacle she’s had to navigate was her mental health.

As Biles revealed in the Making Space With Hoda Kotb podcast, incorporating daily therapy sessions as part of her routine has positively impacted her outlook and performance.

 There are multilayered barriers that can prevent access or diminish the willingness to address mental health in communities of color: For African Americans, bearing the genetic legacy and generational trauma of slavery, Black Codes and Jim Crow laws, along with battling for basic recognition as human beings and for civil rights, with ever-present threats of violent law enforcement, economic turbulence and a lack of trust in medical institutions, as well as an abysmally low rate of black psychologists, can make arriving at a diagnosis and proper care seem insurmountable.

The ever-present need for local access to services is why Dallas’ preeminent provider of mental health services, Metrocare, has created the Health Transitions Program. Focused on transitioning the area’s youth (ages 15 to 21) with social skills, housing, job readiness and other life essentials, Metrocare endeavors to further sustain a vulnerable and growing population with tools and training while expanding their reach beyond Dallas-Fort Worth.

Read more at DallasNews.com.

During his six months in the Tarrant County Jail, Kai’Yere Campbell kept asking his mom, “Am I going home?”

For a long time, Shantel Taylor didn’t have an answer for him.

Campbell is intellectually and developmentally disabled, according to Taylor, and a schizophrenia diagnosis in 2021 added another challenge. At 21, he can’t remember phone numbers, addresses or the year he graduated high school.

“He’s functioning on a childlike level,” Taylor said.

Campbell was living at a group home when he was arrested in December. He allegedly assaulted a group home worker, according to the Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office, and he’s been charged with injury to an elderly person.

Taylor said her son was having an “episode” and group home staff wanted him taken to the hospital, not jail.

KERA reached out to the Fort Worth Police Department (FWPD), asking for their account of the arrest and for an interview about when they decide to make arrests at group homes.

Two months later, the court declared Campbell incompetent to stand trial. That kicked off the competency restoration process — a court-ordered course of treatment designed to make sure someone can be prosecuted while understanding the charges against them.

People often have to complete the competency restoration process at a state psychiatric hospital. Some can also go to a state supported living center, a state-run facility for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) who have behavioral issues.

People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are more likely to be victims of crimes than people without disabilities, according to The Arc, a national disability rights organization.

They’re also more likely to be arrested and charged with crimes, and to serve longer prison sentences.

Read more at KeraNews.org.

Calling it the first comprehensive study on homelessness in West Virginia, the Department of Human Services released a new report highlighting demographics of the unhoused.
 
DoHS’ Bureau for Behavioral Health released its “Assessment of West Virginia Homeless Population” Monday afternoon. The report was required with the passage of Senate Bill 239 in 2023, requiring the commissioner of Bureau for Behavioral Health to engage certain providers and leaders to study the homeless demographic.
According to a summary of the 169-page report, 58% of the unhoused population who participated in the survey self-identified as male, with 13% self-identifying as Black or African American. That number is higher than the 3.7% of Black West Virginia residents according to the latest U.S. Census numbers.

The average age of the unhoused in the state ranged from age 25 to age 44. While the state’s substance use disorder crisis and opioid addiction feeds into West Virginia’s unhoused numbers, the report highlighted other issues. These include individuals released from state incarceration, a lack of affordable housing, and those either unemployed or no longer looking for work.

Dr. William Mercer is the founder of Project HOPE, which works with medical providers in the Ohio Valley to offer health services to the unhoused community in Wheeling and the surrounding area. He said the report reaffirms the need for state support for mitigating issues facing the unhoused.

Read more at TheIntelligencer.net.