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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.

Since the early 2000s, a growing number of maternal care centers across the country have closed their doors – most of them in rural areas, creating dangerous care deserts. Maternal health care is already scarce in these areas as 45% of rural counties had no hospital maternity services before an additional 9% lost services between 2004 and 2014. Between only 2016 and 2020, an additional 70 counties were classified as maternity care deserts. More pregnant or recently pregnant people are going without both proper prenatal and postpartum care. People living in rural areas — many of whom are without insurance, Medicaid recipients, older adults, individuals with disabilities, and veterans — are already at greater risk for disease and death than those in urban areas, where it is far easier to access quality maternal care. While the lack of maternal care resources can gravely impact the physical health of a birthing person, it can also limit the amount and quality of maternal mental and behavioral health care. 

Although peripartum depression is incredibly common, only 28% of women seek support for the condition and report their symptoms to a healthcare provider. Even when they do, women who have been diagnosed or are identified as at risk of peripartum depression do not receive competent services or follow-up care as 70% of rural counties do not have sufficient maternal mental health providers or resources, leading to mortality or severe morbidity. Maternity care deserts undoubtedly contribute to the maternal mental health crisis, but increased training and resources outside of traditional hospital settings can support patients in these areas and improve maternal mental health outcomes.

In rural areas especially, doulas and midwives can play vital roles in delivering maternal care, often offering assistance outside of traditional care settings, ideal for those in maternity care deserts. Midwives and doulas serve similar functions; however, midwives provide medical care during pregnancy, birth, and the immediate postpartum period, while doulas do not perform clinical tasks, instead providing personalized physical/emotional support and education to the birthing person and their family. Midwives commonly provide care in free-standing birthing centers, often associated with lower rates of cesarean births and medical interventions as well as higher rates of breastfeeding. Doulas, who often visit patients in their homes, may be more attuned to cultural differences and in communicating with families to bridge care gaps but are often underutilized. As there are limited traditional maternity care services available in rural areas, the inclusion of additional midwives and doulas — whose care has proven to lower the odds of postpartum depression and anxiety by 57.5% — can help support maternal mental health needs where hospitals are unable to. 

Read more at MedCityNews.com

A recent Birth to Five Illinois report shows that schools across Region 17 — which covers McLean, DeWitt, Livingston and Logan counties — need more mental and behavioral health resources. Birth to Five Illinois launched two years ago to bring solutions to the problems plaguing the state’s education system. Its needs assessment for Region 17 came out last year. Between February and May, Birth to Five Illinois interviewed Region 17 Action Council and Family Council members about where schools could improve behavioral health support for youth.

Key takeaways from the report highlighted a deficit of resources in rural resources, a need for more diverse therapists, and additional providers that accept Medicaid.

Leveraging resources in cities like Bloomington-Normal will likely be part of the solution for getting needed mental and behavioral health support to rural communities, Allen added.

Meanwhile, the report details 16 recommendations for how to get children across the four counties the support they need. Some suggestions were minor, such as building a database of resources, and others were more large-scale, like increasing the number of service providers across the region and getting more infant and early childhood mental health (I/ECMH) consultants.

Read more at WGLT.org.

After months of classes on counseling, Veron Blue got her chance to put what she has learned all year, to work.

Across from her, was fellow trainee Deborah Johnson, who, as part of a lesson, assumed the role of a hypothetical client, who had come to Blue for help dealing with depression.

Remembering to focus first on the encounter’s positives, Blue, pastor at San Antonio’s Family Life International Ministries, began, addressing Johnson directly: “I am so proud of you for coming to this meeting.”

Blue and Johnson, a member of, are among 10 people from eight different Christian churches in San Antonio who have spent the year participating in a Harvard Medical School program called EMPOWER, a unique program to bring basic counseling skills to places of worship.

The training is designed to help clergy, and its members become part of the mental health workforce, offering brief counseling sessions to community members. This program is not meant to handle severe mental illness beyond depression, and trainees are taught to refer cases beyond their scope to a clinical provider.

The free 12-month program is being sponsored by The Congregational Collective, a nonprofit organization founded by H.E. Butt Foundation in 2023 to help San Antonio faith communities support mental wellness.

EMPOWER teaches people how to treat depression using positive emotions. This is the same training mental health providers receive to treat some depression.

This is the first time this training program has been used in the United States, but it has been implemented in countries such as India and various places in sub-Saharan Africa. Harvard Medical School’s Mental Health For All Lab has recently translated the program from Hindi to English and Spanish, and San Antonio is the first stop.

Religious leaders hear all kinds of problems from their congregation, whether it be rent, divorce, spiritual conflict, and more. Their natural reaction is to help their congregation immediately, but this training program focuses on not only helping the physical but also the mental.

Read more at TexasTribune.org.