Month: June 2017

Plan to “Decimate” Mental Health Care

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Leading mental health advocates are strongly condemning the Senate Republican health care bill proposed on June 22 for cutting Medicaid programs that provide vital lifelines to Americans struggling with mental illness.

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The criticism follows the harsh reaction voiced earlier this year to the American Health Care Act proposed by House Republicans to replace the Obama administration’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness, the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization, said this week that the Senate Republicans’ Better Care Reconciliation Act “will slash Medicaid benefits for critical mental health services millions of Americans need to lead productive lives. NAMI opposes this effort to decimate our nation’s already struggling mental health system.”

NAMI explained the importance of Medicaid to mental health care:

“Medicaid is the largest source of funding for public mental health services in our nation. One-third of people covered by Medicaid expansion lives with a mental health or substance use condition and Medicaid serves as a lifeline for people with mental illness who typically fall through the cracks. It provides critical coverage so people have access and receive the mental health treatment they need to finish school, get back to work and contribute to their communities.”

NAMI said that the Senate and House proposals to convert Medicaid to a “per capita cap” for states will result in “devastating cuts to mental health services.”

“NAMI is deeply concerned that the Better Care Reconciliation Act will force people with mental illness out of the health care coverage they need and on to the streets and into costly emergency rooms, hospitals and jails. We encourage Senators to reject this harmful bill, and instead, ensure that Americans have receive the mental health care they need to lead healthy and productive lives.”

Paul Gionfriddo, president and CEO of Mental Health America, echoed NAMI’s concerns. He said the Senate Republican legislation would “do significant harm to people with all chronic conditions, including mental illnesses.” He said the proposal “replaces much of both the core and expanded Medicaid program—lifelines to people with serious and persistent mental illnesses.”

Gionfriddo called for changes to Obamacare to be made “in the context of rational health policy. We would all be well served if Congress were to go back to the drawing board and get this right. Too many lives depend on it.”

Similar to the House legislation, the Senate version would cut health care coverage to 22 million people, according to the Congressional Budget Office. “Repealing and replacing” Obamacare was a major campaign promise made by President Donald Trump. Trump’s Republican Party controls both houses of Congress.

NAMI is organizing a “Virtual Hill Day” on Thursday June 29 to lobby Congress against cuts in mental health coverage, demanding: “We need more mental health care, not less.”

The organization says that 1,000 mental health advocates will meet face-to-face with members of Congress; it encourages others to voice their opposition to cuts by phoning, emailing, or tweeting at their congressional representatives.

Bravo “Dear Evan Hansen”

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“Dear Evan Hansen” is a musical about teenagers in the age of social media dealing with anxiety, confusion, loneliness, hurt, and suicide. A brilliant, cathartic narrative for our times, it cries out for us to recognize human fragility and empathize with it.

 

 

That message spread far beyond Broadway on Sunday night when “Dear Evan Hansen” won six Tony Awards, including for best musical, best actor, and best score. The musical’s cast album, with songs like “You Will Be Found,” “Requiem,” and “Waving Through a Window,” debuted in the Billboard Top 10 earlier this year.

Best-actor winner Ben Platt, who is 23, reached out to vulnerable teenagers in his acceptance remarks during the nationally televised ceremony at Radio City Music Hall:

“To all young people watching at home, don’t waste any time trying to be like anybody but yourself, because the things that make you strange are the things that make you powerful.”

In the plot, anxiety-ridden teen Evan Hansen writes pep-talk letters to himself on the advice of his therapist. One of the letters ends up in the pocket of a social outcast named Connor, who then dies by suicide. The Connor connection takes Evan into a swirl of lies as he fabricates stories about a friendship with Connor and pursues the crush he has on Connor’s sister. Evan achieves temporary social media-fueled fame as a campaigner to aid other youth experiencing Connor’s mental health struggles. Evan’s charade collapses, but the ordeal brings him to a reconciliation with his single-parent mom and to healthier self-awareness.

“Dear Evan Hansen” has been praised for its sensitive handling of mental disorders and suicide. The production has openly associated itself with mental health and suicide prevention organizations like the Child Mind Institute, the Crisis Text Line, The Jed Foundation, and The Trevor Project.

The show’s songwriters, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who won the Tony Award for best original score, spoke to Variety about the care they took in writing about teen suicide. As Paul put it:

“We wanted to make sure the subject was treated thoughtfully and sensitively. There was vetting of the script and of the story with mental health professionals, to make sure what we were telling felt truthful and honest, and like we weren’t trying to sugarcoat things, but that also wasn’t trying to provoke anything. There’s a small change in the show that we made between Second Stage and Broadway, the addition of two little lines toward the very, very end of the show, that we added after some feedback that we’d gotten from families of teenagers or people who had taken their own lives.”

 

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TIME’s Susanna Schrobsdorff captures the incredible impact “Dear Evan Hansen” is having on teenagers—and their parents:

Ask one of the many teenagers in the audience if the play seems authentic and they can barely get the words out. They say things like, “I’m in shock, it’s so good.” And often, right behind them, is a parent who’s also feeling undone. I lost it in the first act when the two stellar actors who play mothers of teens sing about feeling totally unqualified for the job of being a parent. “Does anybody have a map?” they cry. “Anybody maybe happen to know how the hell to do this?”

Mayor Svante Myrick: Support Suicide Prevention

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Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick issued a proclamation Wednesday in support of The Watershed Declaration, a commitment by local mental health stakeholders to intensify efforts to prevent suicide in the community.

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Ithaca Mayor Svante Myrick, The Sophie Fund Co-Donor Advisor Scott MacLeod, and Suicide Prevention & Crisis Service Executive Director Lee-Ellen Marvin

“I call upon our citizens, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, health care providers, and educational institutions to raise awareness of Ithaca’s mental health support services, encourage those in need to seek treatment, honor those in our community we have lost too soon, and commit to an all-out effort to prevent suicide,” Svante said in issuing the proclamation at the start of the Ithaca Common Council meeting Wednesday evening.

The Watershed Declaration was adopted by acclamation at the close of a meeting held on April 17 of leaders from Tompkins County, the City of Ithaca, non-profit organizations, and the campuses of Cornell University, Ithaca College, and Tompkins Cortland Community College. The declaration termed suicide a “serious public health concern” and pledged to intensify suicide prevention efforts in Ithaca and Tompkins County.

Myrick said there is strong evidence that a comprehensive public health approach is effective in preventing suicide, and called on the community’s health and behavioral health systems to prevent suicide deaths using the best available information and practices.

Moreover, Myrick said, “every member of our community can play a role in protecting their friends, family members, and colleagues from suicide. Our community needs to advance suicide prevention by fighting the stigma around mental health and seeking treatment for mental disorders.”

Lee-Ellen Marvin, executive director of the Suicide Prevention and Crisis Service in Ithaca, expressed her gratitude for “the mayor’s support for reinvigorating our community’s commitment to suicide prevention. The need has never been greater. Unfortunately, suicide rates have been increasing in the last 15 to 20 years.”

“This proclamation is highlighting the need to address suicide prevention,” said Sharon MacDougall, deputy commissioner of Mental Health Services in Tompkins County. MacDougall added that her agency is working with the New York State Office of Mental Health to create a Tompkins County Suicide Prevention Coalition. “Selected key stakeholders will be invited to a planning meeting to start the Tompkins Suicide Prevention Coalition this summer,” she said. “This coalition will help coordinate the efforts of multiple agencies, providers and others to improve suicide prevention across Tompkins.”

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The Watershed Declaration was adopted by acclamation at a meeting of 18 organizations hosted by The Sophie Fund, which was established in memory of Cornell University art student Sophie Hack MacLeod to promote improved mental health for young people in the greater Ithaca area.

The Watershed Declaration stated:

“We the assembled mental health stakeholders of the greater Ithaca community and Tompkins County recognize suicide as a serious public health concern. Today we renew our commitment to suicide prevention and pledge to intensify efforts toward saving lives and bringing hope to those struggling with suicide thoughts or affected by suicide loss.”

[If you or someone you know feels the need to speak with a mental health professional, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741-741.]