Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • 'They probably saved my life' | Former inmate says nonprofit keeps him, others out of jail

    St. Louis' Concordance Academy of Leadership turns the traditional approach to prison re-entry programs on its head. Rather than pushing people just released from prison to find housing and a job, the academy pays its participants a living wage while it provides them with the counseling and other support they need not to slip back into trouble. Once their lives are stable, they focus in the 18-month program on employment. The 6-year-old program improves the chances of staying out of prison by more than 40%, according to one study. Concordance is raising the money it needs to expand to other cities.

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  • Hacer jabones y reciclar restos de velas: soluciones ante la escasez en proyecto Corazón Solidario

    Corazón Solidario es un refugio diurno para personas con transtornos psiquiátricos en Santa Clara que ofrece un espacio seguro durante la semana para que las personas que lo necesitan. El centro enfrenta los problemas de la escases que vive el país, pero encuentra maneras de seguir produciendo para cubrir sus costos y darle un estipendio a los pacientes.

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  • In Eugene, Oregon, civilian response workers—not police—are dispatched to nonviolent crises

    Eugene's well-established CAHOOTS program for replacing police as first responders to certain types of 911 calls has become a model for multiple cities as they seek to replicate its success in an era of questioning the role of police. While it saves its city money and replaces arrests and possible violence with social and health services for people needing housing or mental health care, or suffering from addiction, CAHOOTS is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of programs responding to these challenges. Communities' differences will dictate what works best for them.

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  • Albuquerque's vision for non-police first responders comes down to earth

    In response to the 2020 policing protests, Albuquerque was among the first cities to embrace a major change in handling mental-health-crisis calls to 911. But its new Community Safety Department has foundered in its first year, a victim of inadequate planning and resources. The plan to send unarmed first responders on such calls, to reduce the risk of a violent over-reaction by the police, depended on reassigning city workers from other agencies, none of whom were mental health professionals. City councilors have sent the planners back to rethink the latest in a history of failed responses.

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  • Give Housing, Save Money

    Providing people with housing and then giving them the services they need to stay housed is also a very effective way to save tax-payer money. Reducing chronic homeless through programs like The Madrone Project helps keep the unhoused healthier, reducing their trips to the ER, and also saves tax dollars that go into policing those living on the streets. Spending money on housing and services can be considered an investment that helps get people housed and healthy again, as well as a financial strategy to reduce government and hospital costs.

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  • Criminalizing Mental Illness, Part 2

    Los Angeles County's Office of Diversion and Reentry has moved about 6,000 people out of jails and into programs providing mental health care, drug treatment, housing, and job training at a cost that is about one-fifth that of incarcerating people with mental illness. Like Eugene, Oregon's CAHOOTS program, ODR provides an alternative to the default model in the U.S. of incarcerating people with such health problems. L.A. County is now shifting as much as $500 million from policing to supportive services because programs like ODR and CAHOOTS fall far short of the actual need.

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  • Fighting to open closed doors: how advocates stepped up efforts to help sex trafficking survivors in a world where hiding victims is easier than ever

    Victims of sex trafficking in Ohio have accessed services and resources made available by local advocates. Outreach events, support, and recovery services, trauma counselors, as well as personal care items were all provided.

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  • Farmers Can be Isolated and Unsure How to Seek Support. One State is Trying to Help.

    The state of Wisconsin has launched a pilot initiative that aims to help farmers who are dealing with job stressors access mental health services including "a 24-hour wellness hotline, tele-counseling sessions and vouchers for in-person visits with participating mental health providers." While some of the services have proved more successful than the others, as a whole, use of the counseling services has increased, especially as the coronavirus pandemic continues.

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  • At Teen Lifeline, teens help in ways only they can

    A hotline staffed by teenagers for teenagers has been providing peer-to-peer support and counseling services in Arizona for years but has played an even bigger role during the coronavirus pandemic. The group quickly pivoted to reduced staffing shifts to limit exposure to the virus and implemented longer hours for texting services. Not only have calls to the hotline increased, so has the number of those who want to volunteer.

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  • ‘Peer Respites' Provide an Alternative to Psychiatric Wards During Pandemic

    As the coronavirus pandemic forces people into isolation and social distancing, places known as "peer respites" are providing a space for those "experiencing or nearing a mental health crisis" to seek help. While the peer respites don't offer clinical care by licensed mental healthcare professionals, they are free for those who stay and "offer people in distress short-term (usually up to two weeks), round-the-clock emotional support from peers."

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