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Greetings!
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SPOTLIGHT ON: CrisisLink's Community Education Workshops
October Marks Depression Awareness Month
Depression is a common, but serious medical
illness that can affect people of all ages
and cultures and can interfere significantly
with an individual's ability to function in
daily life. More than 45 million
Americans will suffer from clinical
depression at some point in their lives, and
far too many clinically depressed individuals
attempt suicide.
Depression is a treatable illness that often
goes untreated or unrecognized. Depression
can be devastating to all areas of a person's
everyday life, including family
relationships, friendships, and the ability
to go to work or school.
CrisisLink's Community Education Program
offers workshops and seminars designed to
help people recognize the risks and warning
signs of depression and suicide.
These and other workshops we offer
teach essential skills, such as:
- Depression: Symptoms, Impact &
Treatments
- Suicide: Risk Assessment, Prevention,
Intervention, & Postvention
- Stress Management
- Working Through Grief and Loss
- Critical Incident Response Training
- Expressive Therapy Workshops
- Phone Crisis Management
- Dealing with Angry and Difficult Callers
- Active Listening & Communication Skills
- Setting Professional Boundaries
CrisisLink's Community Education workshops
are available for mental health workers & EAP
personnel, teachers & school counselors, law
enforcement, teens & peer mediators, parents,
customer service representatives, information
& referral specialists, and anyone else
seeking to enhance communication skills, to
reduce personal or professional stress, and
to gain a better understanding of mental
health and illness. To learn more about
these and other workshops, please contact
Mary Azoy, CrisisLink's Director of Community
Education & Crisis Response, at
marya@crisislink.org or 703-516-6771.
Learn more about CrisisLink's full range of programs.
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Conversations: CrisisLink's Community Trainees Speak Out!
CrisisLink recently presented a suicide
prevention workshop for The Orphan Foundation
of America located in Sterling, Virginia.
Scholarship Director Tina Raheem spoke with
us about the experience:
Q: Tina, what type of training did
CrisisLink provide for the Orphan Foundation
of America?
A: We participated in a suicide prevention
training. Since we interact with our
students mostly by telephone and email, it is
important for us to have good, empathic
communication skills, and to be able to
identify smaller problems that could
potentially escalate into major emergencies.
Q: Why was it important for your staff to
have this training?
A: Our entire staff interacts with the
students, so this training was given to all
of our staff members. Our students are
foster youth and former foster youth (3,000
of them across the country), and there have
been many instances when we know a student
is, or might become, suicidal and has no one
to turn to besides us. Having trained staff
helps us ensure that these students are
safe.
Q: How did your staff benefit from this
training?
A: Our staff came away with a much better
understanding of how to talk to youth in
crisis. Each staff member was given a supply
of CrisisLink Hotline Wallet Cards, and we've
already handed them out on several occasions.
The training reaffirmed and strengthened the
foundation from which we counsel our clients.
This was a very worthwhile, informative
training for our staff, we now feel more
confident in recognizing and responding to
depressed and suicidal youth.
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President Bush Signs Mental Health Parity into Law
Legislation will require most group health plans to provide better coverage for treatment of mental illness.
In early October, President Bush signed into
law a mental health parity bill that will
require equity in insurance benefits for
nearly 113 million Americans. The
legislation will require companies with 50 or
more employees to provide coverage for
patients seeking treatment for mental illness
comparable to those seeking treatment for
physical illness.
The legislation passed as part of the
Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008,
also known as the $700 billion Wall Street
bailout bill. It came in response to a
long-time push from mental health advocacy
groups and recent studies showing evidence of
a link between untreated depression and
physical illness.
Before passage of the bill, federal law
allowed insurers to set higher co-payments
and caps on outpatient therapy sessions.
Now, insurance companies will no longer be
able to differentiate between mental and
physical health coverage with higher co-payments
and strict limitations against patients
seeking mental health services.
Congressman George Miller (D-CA), chairman of
the House Education and Labor Committee,
notes that "approximately forty-four million
Americans suffer from mental illness, but
only one-third receive treatment. One reason
is that private health insurers generally
provide less coverage for mental illnesses
and substance abuse than for other medical
conditions. This bill is an important step
towards ending the stigma attached to mental
illness and providing fair coverage to those
in need." Click
here to read more.
To read the full text of the bill, click
here. To find out how your Senator voted,
click
here. To see how your Representative
voted, click
here.
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Thank you for your support!
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