Not Just For Soldiers: Civilians With PTSD Struggle To Find Effective Therapy

Paul Quinn, a historically Black college, developed an exhaustive program that supports students’ mental health as a way to encourage academic success. All incoming students have a mental health assessment with a counselor and have free access to therapy and support groups throughout their education. Professors, coaches, and academic advisers also offer support or can direct students to campus resources.

The state-funded Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium provides mental health care and resources to more than 300 school districts, with one goal of preventing mass shootings. Programs like in-school behavioral telehealth appointments make care more accessible to children who are identified as in-need

In Minneapolis, a collaboration between the Division of Race and Equity, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and the city’s procurement department has helped establish an emergency mental health fund that aims to more equitably supply resources to the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. The reimbursement-based fund provides clinical counselors with the financial support necessary to increase their caseloads and focus on "helping people of color, women, indigenous people, disabled people, and those who are undocumented."

Climate change is impacting not just the environment but the way in which humans are able to exist within the altered landscape. As ecosystems shift, storms worsen and loss of homes continues to rise, the mental health industry is looking towards changing traditional practices in order to account for clients presenting with "eco-anxiety and climate grief."

The Philadelphia School District is working to integrate trauma-informed teaching and care into its strategy. It has partnered with Lakeside Global Initiative and the Institute for Family Professionals to offer trainings and classes that help educators understand how trauma affects learning, and what changes can be made to help those experiencing trauma learn. While over 850 teachers have taken the trainings, they are costly, and looking forward may be hard to sustain.

Black communities are often left without adequate counseling services when faced with racial trauma, but clinical psychologists are working to address this. So far, solutions include opening clinics that specialize in African-American mental health and social media campaigns focused on normalizing conversations around mental health awareness in the Black community.

Evanston's free Mental Health First Aid training program has equipped 169 residents with skills to recognize and respond to mental health crises. This helps distressed individuals connect to professional resources more efficiently, though challenges remain in ensuring adequate follow-up mental health services are available in the community.

LandLogic Model trains mental healthcare providers to use farmers’ relationships to their land to identify and treat depression, anxiety, and other emotional issues. Virtual and easily adaptable training models have helped the LandLogic Model support this notoriously hard-to-reach population.

Dental offices like Asian Health Services are starting to incorporate mental health care in their dental services. By observing changes in oral health, building trust with patients to talk about their mental health and having them fill out questionnaires about how they’ve been feeling, dentists are able to identify patients that may be struggling and then help connect them with therapy and treatment. Asian Health Services screens 300 to 400 patients per year, about 7% of which are then referred to counseling.

The Mental Health Intervention Team at Salina Public Schools makes mental health care more accessible by using grant money to hire school liaisons to assist and provide mental health services to students at school. Within the 2022-2023 academic year alone, 635 students were served and 76% of them improved their school attendance, while 65% saw improvement in their academic performance.