Peter Ashenden
Monday, December 08, 2008
They sometimes call Puerto Rico the "Island of Enchantment." With its beautiful Caribbean coral reefs and beaches, it's easy to see why. But I learned this past October that, when we're talking about mental health, island life is difficult ... not enchanted. Barely a month into my new role as DBSA pr...
Anne Serrano
Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at 02:02 PM
I am an Administrative Associate at a Community Cafe in Brownsville. We serve hot meals Monday through Friday, lunch and dinner. We also have Advocates who help clients navigate the various government aid systems. As an open house for the neighborhood, we have many clients who suffer from mental health and/or substance abuse problems. This year with have partnered with another agency to have a psychiatrist on site one day a week to provide referrals and help with housing applications. This is an experimental program and the continuance of it depends on the intitial success of the program. We need more programs of this nature as many people will not seek help on their own. By offering this service in a familiar atmosphere we are able to reach some of those individuals.
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Anonymous
Friday, December 26, 2008 at 06:10 PM
how many of the problems faced by the mentally ill community are financial rather than medical or treatment-based? seems to me that, if studies show that poverty results in mental illness, to take a mentally ill person and by institutional design throw that person into extreme poverty that there is little or nothing that treatment, medication, and services can do to stabilize the person. Unfortunately, the problem is exacerbated expotentially when services are cut or eliminated.
why not just raise the income provided by SSI and RSDI and see what that does all by itself to improve the health and wellbeing of the mentally ill? Let them focus on getting better instead of investing all of their energies trying to keep fed and housed?
seems to me that it's penny wise and pound foolish not to.
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