4th CIT Police Training Given by Village of Hempstead Police in Collaboration with 

NAMI Queens/Nassau

 

Building on the success of previous Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) trainings, Lt. Pat Cooke, trainer for the Village of Hempstead Police, in collaboration with NAMIQueens/Nassau, organized another successful training for 20 area police officers from October 27-30.  Featured in the training were family members and consumers sharing their stories; a Hearing Voices role-play in which officers try to navigate tasks of everyday living while wearing headsets simulating voices in their head; and de-escalation strategies modeled by a special team of retired police officers brought in from Connecticut.

Family members and consumers who shared their stories were NAMI-NYS Criminal Justice Chair, Jayette Lansbury, Ed Frank, Barbara Allen, Greta Farjaram, and Andre Keller. Task force members who aided in planning the event included Melinda Carbonell, NuHealth Long Island FQHC, Inc.; Maura Gordon and Kathleen Dunn from the Nassau County Office of Mental Health; and Maria Ceraulo from the United Universalist Congregation at Shelter Rock. (UUCSR) The training was funded by NYS with additional support from UUCSR. 

On October 29th, at SUNY in Oneonta and NAMI of Otsego presented "Fierce Goodbye: Living in the Shadow of Suicide", a film with inspiring family stories of survival.  The film also includes discussion by clergy of several faiths, as well as commentary by Kate Reid Jamison, MD, a professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who has bipolar disorder and has experienced suicidal behavior in the past, and folk singer/songwriter Judy Collins, whose son took his life.

 

The program was introduced by Stephanie Poplock, LCSW, PhD, who is a member of the board of NAMI of Otsego, as well as the deputy director of Otsego County Behavioral Health Services, and an adjunct professor of psychology at SUNY.  Dr. Poplock reviewed a list of tips, which had been handed out to attendees, on recognizing signs of risk of suicidal behavior, how to provide support for people experiencing suicidal thinking, and how to help them reach mental health services as soon as possible.

 

Following the film, a panel was available to answer questions from the audience. It included Dr. Poplock, representatives from local clergy, the regional chapter of the American Society for Suicide Prevention, and a consumer who is in recovery after experiencing suicidal episodes, and who also lost a loved one to suicide.The room was packed with about 150 attendees, including many students from SUNY, as well as from nearby Hartwick College. 

After a grueling and nearly 12 hour mark-up hearing, HR2646:  The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act made it out of the health subcommittee on Wednesday, November 4th,  with all provisions intact and moved to the Energy and Commerce Committee with a bipartisan vote of 18 ayes and 12 nays.

Of the bill's passage co-sponsors Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson said, "Yesterday's vote to approve H.R. 2646 and report the bill out of the Health Subcommittee was an historic moment for families in mental health crisis and for the millions of Americans trapped in our nation's broken mental health system. Our bipartisan bill transforms the federal government's approach to mental health programs by investing in early childhood and first episode mental health interventions when we can make the most impact for meaningful recovery. We also help those in the midst of psychiatric crisis get medical treatment and not jail time. And we keep the focus on families by bringing them into the frontline care team." Click here to read the entire statement.

Click here to read NAMI's memo on the bill.

Click here to read an in-depth news story of the hearing.

In his farewell post, Dr. Insel looks back at six years of the director's blog and reflects on the tasks ahead in mental health research and practice. 

NAMI-NYS wants to thank Dr. Insel for his visionary leadership of NIMH where he helped change what is considered possible in researching the brain. We wish him all the best as he continues to further expand the understanding of the brain and psychiatric disorders in his new role at Google Life Sciences.

Click here to read the blog.  

Combating Early Death in People with

 Serious Mental Illness

NIMH released a Science Update this week detailing their work to combat early deaths in people with serious mental illnesses. The update came after an article in   JAMA Psychiatry  was published containing disturbing statistics which estimate that people with serious mental illnesses are on average losing 28.5 years of life, primarily because of natural causes. Eighty-five percent of the premature deaths were due to largely preventable conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and heart disease.

Treatment of Severe Mood Dysregulation, SMD

(Inpatient: 12- to 15 weeks) This study tests the efficacy of different treatments for decreasing irritability in children with severe mood and behavioral problems. Participants have symptoms of severe irritability and are not doing well on their current medications. The child must be currently in treatment with a physician, medically healthy and not currently hospitalized, psychotic or suicidal. The study includes day or full hospitalization to discontinue medication, followed by either methylphenidate plus citalopram, or methylphenidate plus placebo. Recruiting ages 7-17. [09-M-0034]

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/labs-at-nimh/join-a-study/trials/childrens-studies/citalopram-methylphenidate-bpd.shtml

For more information on research conducted by the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, MD click here www.nimh.nih.gov/JoinAStudy .