Mental health disaster training a smart move

More law officers should be trained in how to recognize and deal with the mentally ill based on the knowledge one assistant took home from the training. Members of the National Alliance for Mental Illness’ Four Seasons Chapter and other mental health care providers met in February with local law officers to advocate for local officers to be trained. The training gives officers an overview of different types of mental illness they may encounter — from schizophrenia to age-related dementia to post-shocking stress disorder — as well as medications patients may be taking.

It also includes meeting people with mental illness, a tour of local mental health care providers and role-playing situations. Officers deal every day with people going through mental health crises that can include being off medications, matter abuse and family problems. That’s why it is so important that officers get this training.“We walked through all types of mental illness and medications. We were taught the triggers that may cause some patients to become aggressive.”

Researchers Review Gay Youths' Mental Health

One third of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth have attempted suicide in their lifetime, but most of them are mentally strong, new U.S. research suggests. A team at the University of Illinois at Chicago conducted psychiatric interviews with 246 ethnically diverse LGBT youth, aged 16-20, to tax them for major depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), conduct disorder and suicide attempts.

About 70 percent of the youth met no criteria for any mental disorders, but 15 percent met criteria for major despair and nearly 10 percent met criteria for PTSD. The study found that one-third of the youths had made a suicide attempt at some point in their life, and 6 percent had made a suicide attempt in the last year. The occurrence of mental disorders among LGBT youth was higher than that in the general population, but comparable to that of urban and alternative youth, the researchers noted."One of the most important findings from our work is that most of these [LGBT] youth are doing very well and are not experiencing mental health problems,