Caring for mentally ill: 3 counties' success stories

More than five million Americans have Alzheimer’s or similar illnesses, and that number is growing as the population ages - without any immediate prospect of a cure, advocacy groups have begun promoting ways to offer people with dementia a comfortable decline instead of imposing on them a medical model of care, which seeks to defer death through escalating interventions. An Arizona nursing home offers new ways to care for people with dementia.

Bogotá's Manzanas del Cuidado (Caregiving Blocks) provides free services like education, counseling, and skills training at 25 neighborhood locations to reduce the burden on women caregivers, successfully empowering participants to complete high school, gain new skills, and find employment opportunities. It's become a pioneering model in Latin America for recognizing unrenumerating labors. Read this article in Spanish here: https://solu.news/zfxr

Across Georgia, a community-based mental health care approach has decreased both the duration and frequency of hospitalization for clients. This approach relies on mental health and other healthcare specialists delivering care to clients via mobile teams.

The Rural Mental Health Outreach program in Minnesota is helping farmers in the region to tackle mental health challenges that are related to the stresses involved in their profession. Other states have taken notice of the program's success and are now piloting similar programs as a means of addressing a rising concern of suicide within the farming industry.

With hundreds of millions of dollars dedicated to making over Texas’ hospital system, designers are looking beyond simply upgrading the physical infrastructure. Instead, they’re reimagining what the entire system could look like. Considering physical space, the upstream causes of mental health issues, and how to attract and retain the best practitioners are just a few of the elements that are being considered in this redesign.

People with mental illnesses often do not receive patient-centered care that takes into consideration the mental illness along with the health concern they’re facing. Aiming to address this issue as is specifically pertains to cancer patients, a model in Massachusetts is seeing a higher success of completing cancer treatments by addressing patient’s needs for accommodations.

A community-based program in Uganda has helped reduce violence in families and gender inequity by training both parents in effective communication and parenting. Organizers focused specifically on recruiting men because they are often not involved in home life and are exposed to societal beliefs about masculinity that can perpetuate patterns of violence. The pilot program of 600 participants showed positive results in reducing family violence and other communities want to adopt it.

To reduce the stigma around seeking treatment for addiction, the Interim House in Philadelphia provides a women-exclusive program that focus on treating past traumas through the use of dialectical behavior therapy. Based on the idea that women are more open to talking about their histories in women-only settings, the program increases trust between therapist and client as well as between the women attending the program.

Several medical groups and hospitals in Chicago have formed an alliance to provide the city's homeless population with adequate health care. Some health clinics treat hypothermia, heat stroke, and more and place an emphasis on building stability and trust with the homeless camps in the city; other research labs work to get homeless folks off the street as a longer-term solution.

In a Buffalo school district where many students from low-income families struggled with trauma, attendance, and the effects of poverty, a nonprofit initiative called Say Yes to Education is implementing drastic change. The program increases graduation rates for minority students, grants scholarships and admissions guidance to colleges, provides medical and mental health care to under-served students, brings in mentors and after-school programs, and even assists students parents with job-readiness workshops and housing assistance.