Man triumphs over mental illness and succeeds in helping others
SUSAN JURGELSKI
Lancaster New Era
LANCASTER, Pa. - Bob Forrey has heard the voice of God.
He once commanded Forrey to strip and plunge into the Susquehanna River.
But Forrey's orders from God weren't divine inspirations.
They were hallucinations, symptoms of an illness that put him on a tightrope between illusion and reality.
Forrey is the award-winning executive director of the Lancaster County Consumer Satisfaction Team, whose members, while struggling with their own mental illness, survey and advocate for mental-health consumers.
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Reported August 4, 2005
Severe Mental Illness Linked to Crime Victims
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- More than one-fourth of people with severe mental illness were victims of crime last year, according to a new study. That is 11-times the rate of the general population.
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SOURCE: Archives of General Psychiatry, 2005;62:911-921
16 National Organizations Cite Crisis in Mental Health System, Release Roadmap for Reform
WASHINGTON, July 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Today at the U.S. Capitol, the Campaign for Mental Health Reform released "Emergency Response: A Roadmap for Federal Action on America's Mental Health Crisis."
The coalition of 16 national organizations proposed 28 action steps as a "roadmap" for Congress and the Administration to transform the country's ailing mental health care system.
Posted on Sun, Dec. 19, 2004
Miami HERALD WATCHDOG
Mental illness pushes families to the limit
Across the country, the families of the seriously mentally ill are stuck in an all-consuming struggle to save the sick from themselves.
BY JOE
MOZINGO
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WASHINGTON, July 7 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Thousands of children with mental illnesses await needed community mental health services in juvenile detention centers across the
country, according to a new report released at a hearing in the U.S. Senate's Governmental Affairs Committee this morning.
"Children who need a safety net instead wind up waiting in juvenile
detention," said Tammy Seltzer, senior staff attorney at the Washington-based Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. "Thousands of children are locked up because the system isn't offering them the help that they need when they need it."
Hastert stops bill to boost mental illness coverage
June 11, 2004
BY FREDERIC J. FROMMER
WASHINGTON -- Aided by House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), insurance companies successfully have blocked legislation to make them provide equal coverage for mental and physical illnesses if their policies include both.
03/20/04
Police get primer on mental illness
Their numbers are not large, but the quality training they received may help reduce the jail population.
Twenty-nine police officers, including two from the Venice (CA) Police Department, other local police departments and the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office, graduated Friday from the community's first-ever Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training at Keiser College in Sarasota.
"The idea is to re-educate our officers so they can help get people into crisis centers instead of jail," Sarasota County Health Department spokeswoman Dianne Shipley said.
http://www.venicegondolier.com/NewsArchive3/032004/vn7.htm
McCoy has paranoid schizophrenia, an acquaintance told reporters, citing what she'd been told by his family. Authorities won't confirm that, but have said McCoy has a mental illness and had stopped taking his medication.
The legal system will provide justice for McCoy and his victims, we're confident.
But the fact that McCoy is mentally ill should not be used to further tar the much-stigmatized image of our neighbors who are mentally ill. We want to make sure they are treated justly by the public as well. Being ill is not a crime.
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STRESS AILS CAREGIVERS
Daily News (New York) ...
More than 1 million New Yorkers are at increased risk for depression or
anxiety, heart attack, stroke, muscle and joint problems, weakened immune
systems and sometimes premature death. Those same New Yorkers also are prone to
sleeplessness, fatigue, weight gain and gastrointestinal problems. Who are these individuals?
They are ordinary people who care for disabled or chronically ill family members or friends, sometimes for decades - without pay, training and/or support from the health care system.
Senate bill defines mental illness
Lawmakers are asked to clarify competency in SB49
By Jennifer Dobner
Deseret Morning News
When a death warrant was signed last summer for Roberto Arguelles, questions were raised about the state of the convicted killer's mental health.
In court hearings, Arguelles, 41, would spit and shout obscenities, rambling in long incoherent sentences. In his cell at the Utah State Prison, he ate his own feces, court documents and plastics.
The Department of Corrections asked the court for a competency evaluation to ensure the inmate understood the ramifications of the death warrant. But Arguelles, who raped and murdered four women, died of natural causes last fall before that evaluation was complete.
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,590041889,00.html
Ed Kuny and son, Thomas have learned much about about mental illness since Thomas was diagnosed with schizophrenia 29 years ago.
By BIBB UNDERWOOD - Special Writer
"Thomas is very intelligent," Ed Kuny said, as he began this interview. "He is reasonably fluent in French and he does wonderful art. He has done more than 30 pictures and we are planning to take them to San Antonio to a 'starving artist' exhibit and see if he can sell a few."
Thomas is Ed Kuny's 44 year-old son who suffers from schizophrenia. Ed says Thomas was around 15 when they began to realize something was not normal, but he was not positively diagnosed until age 20.
"Because of Thomas, my wife, Sally, and I became very involved with the National Alliance
on Mental Illness (NAMI). It literally saved our family. .."
Homelessness
and Mental Illness :
A downward spiral to the street
January 28, 2004
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/01/28/EDG744IEOE1.DTL
Workplace stress and depression are exacting a heavy toll, particularly among conscientious employees "in their prime working years," say a group of corporate leaders who have pledged to conduct mental health audits of their own organizations.
A set of guidelines, to be released today by the Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health, says mental illness is now the leading cause of employee disability and, as such, should be addressed at the corporate board level.
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040217/RGUID17/TPBusiness/TopStories
...studies by the National Institute of Mental Health and others have shown that
90 percent of suicides are related to undiagnosed, untreated, or inadequately treated mental illness...Montana has the second or third highest suicide rate in the country.
Suicide has hit the front page in Montana newspapers recently. There have been four suicides at the Montana State Prison in the past eight months.
On Jan. 29, Governor Judy Martz and Gail Gray, director of the Department of Public Health and Human Services, held a press conference dedicated to preventing teen suicides in Montana.
http://www.helenair.com/articles/2004/02/17/opinions/a04021704_02.txt
Troubled Students Feel
College Nudges Them Off Campus
By KATHARINE
A. KAPLAN
Harvard Crimson
Staff Writer
Peter F. Lake ’81, a professor of law at Stetson University in Florida who has
published a book on university legal obligations, says that nudging students off
campus is one way universities currently deal with the burgeoning mental health
“crisis” on campuses.
“There’s a number of approaches to the first generation of
the problem, and one thing is to push the problem off campus,” Lake says.
“It may not be the best thing for them or the school, but it’s one solution
to the campus issue.”
Hyman says that liability is always a concern for medical
institutions because of the number of lawsuits filed by patients...
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=357115&picnum=1
of Bucks County
Pennsylvania
