mental health

Many of the nation's leading grant universities demand health insurance as a requirement for all incoming full-time students. As of the 2007-2008 academic year, UNH will be one of them.

For this requisite to come into effect, the requirement will abide by a yearlong process of reviewing the individual students' health care needs, considering the programs objectives with students, parents and staff members.

Through Health Plans, Inc., health insurance will be available under UNH's new Student Health Benefits Plan. For student coverage, the average cost of this program will be about $115 a month. This includes a $1 million maximum lifetime benefit, no current health care exclusions or limitations, prescription drug and mental health care coverage and reduced co-payments for access to physician and hospital services.

Interest rooted in family tragedy

Sometimes all it takes is one person to stand up. And Tamara Sale decided early in life that she would be that kind of person.

She is now serving as coordinator of the Mid-Valley Behavioral Care Network's Early Assessment and Support Team, known as EAST. Her team relies on early identification and intervention to head off severe forms of psychotic illness in young adults.

And she owes it all to her brother, Glenn.

"Glenn is a kind, sensitive, intelligent person," Sale said. "He's an artist. He has a sense of humor.

"And he's a robotics genius. He built his first robot in seventh grade, back before anyone was building robots."

But he has suffered his entire adult life from debilitating schizophrenia. And that had a huge impact on Sale.

"Since I was a teenager, I knew I wanted to work to change the mental health system," she said.

Some people make a profession of caring for those who need help

Editor's note: This is the fourth in a series of articles by Mental Health Mental Retardation Services of Texoma. A few individuals know early in life what they want to do as a profession. It may take others well into their adult years to decide.Freda Jenkins is one of those who decided many years into adulthood what would fulfill her in the way of a career."I woke up one day and decided I wanted to be a social worker. My daughter was in college by that time, and I had some freedom to make some different choices. I began checking into getting a degree and started to school," states Jenkins.Jenkins had worked for Mental Health Mental Retardation Services of Texoma (MHMRST) for 11 years in direct care as a residential support tech in one of its Intermediate Care Facilities for persons with mental retardation.

Deputies still waiting for mental health facility

Deputies wear a lot of hats: they respond to emergencies, write citations and go on proactive patrol. But for the last two years they have also served as taxi drivers, with no end in sight. April marks the two-year anniversary of the closing of the local Behavioral Health Center at Victor Valley Community Hospital, and since that time, the closest mental health facility is at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center. That means that when authorities take custody of a mentally ill individual, they are required to drive them to ARMC and wait until they are checked into the facility a process which can easily take four or five hours away from the deputys 10-hour shift. When you get a deputy on a (mentally ill call), the watch commander can pretty much guarantee that the deputy is kind of bought and paid for a couple of hours, said Sgt.