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

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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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  • 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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  • 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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  • 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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  • ‘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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  • 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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  • How Genesee County wants to change criminal justice: A New Juvenile Justice Center

    A new Juvenile Justice Center that will focus on trauma-informed treatment of children rather than simply jailing them is still more than one year from completion. But, in the years leading to its opening, the county's family courts have cut in half the numbers of children held in detention by emphasizing rehabilitation programs over jail. Many of the services are based on the "Missouri Model" of juvenile justice, which has been shown to reduce incarceration and prevent crime through evidence-based approaches that are more therapeutic than punitive.

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  • 'A chance to choose life': For some, drug courts break cycle of addiction and crime

    Cheshire County Drug Court provides intensive drug addiction treatment, behavioral therapy, and other services to help people charged with crimes whose drug problems are their underlying problem. Since 2013, it has helped dozens of people avoid re-offending and put their lives on track. Like other drug courts, it is not suited to all circumstances and its coercive nature – jail is threatened for failure to follow the rules – has its critics. But graduates credit it with saving their lives. And it serves as a gateway to services that people might not otherwise have access to.

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  • A New Tool in Treating Mental Illness: Building Design

    Across the U.S. an influx of new mental health facilities are being designed through a lens of "evidence-based" architecture that aims to use the design itself as a means of treatment. With studies indicating that access to nature and green space can reduce stress, these new facilities aren't "just about being warm and fuzzy."

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  • How Oregon's Radical Decriminalization of Drugs Was Inspired by Portugal

    After Portugal decriminalized hard drugs in 2001 to treat drug use as a health problem and not a crime, the country expanded treatment services that produced sharp drops in drug-overdose deaths and HIV infections. Its numbers of people incarcerated on drug charges also dropped by nearly half. The Drug Policy Alliance studied Portugal's approach and made a modified version of it the model for Oregon, where courts and prisons have been the gateway to the state's limited treatment services. Oregon voters approved decriminalization and a vast increase in treatment programs that will roll out in 2021.

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