Tuesday, July 27, 2004

NAMI Announces STAR Center
Announcement at the NAMI web site on the Support Technical Assistance Resource Center - "NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) has inaugurated a new technical assistance center to help improve and increase the capacity of consumer-operated programs to meet the needs of persons living with mental illnesses in diverse communities. 'Self-help is part of recovery,' said NAMI national director Michael J. Fitzpatrick, ' NAMI is committed to recovery, peer support, expansion of consumer opportunities, and multicultural action to meet the needs of underserved communities. The STAR Center is part of that vision. It will be a tremendous engine for progress.' The STAR Center is one of five consumer and consumer supporter technical assistance centers nationwide, funded by the federal Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) to promote self-help in the planning, delivery and evaluation of mental health services." See also the Support Technical Assistance Resource Center web site.  
  

State prisoners sue for better mental health care (New Hampshire)
Boston Globe story - "Six New Hampshire State Prison inmates are suing the state for not providing adequate mental health care. They accuse the state of leaving suicidal maximum-security prisoners in empty rooms for more than 24 hours without beds or toilets. They also claim mental health programs are understaffed and that inmates can go for months or years without treatment. The lawsuit also faults the department for failing to create a residential treatment unit for mentally ill inmates and not installing a computerized data management system for the mental health unit."  
  

A father's fight for mental health
Detroit Free Press story on Paul Raeburn, author of Acquainted with the Night: A Parent's Quest to Understand Depression and Bipolar Disorder in His Children (Broadway Books), written "... to bring attention to a topic often shrouded in silence. Bipolar disorder also is known as manic depression. Symptoms include extreme changes in mood, energy levels and behavior. The book is not a step-by-step guide telling parents what to do to miraculously save their mentally ill children. Instead, this is one book, one family's story, to try to say, 'We've got to pay more attention to this,' Raeburn says. 'There are millions of kids and parents out there who are really, really suffering.'"