News Clips
Colorado doctors highlight patient safety and preparation as key priorities in state’s development of psilocybin therapy rules
January 29, 2024
By: Shane Ersland
Colorado is in the process of developing rules for the rollout of its psilocybin therapy program, and mental health experts highlighted some components that will factor into those decisions last week.
Mental Health Colorado and Healing Advocacy Fund will host a series of webinars about the rollout of psilocybin services in the state over the next couple months, and held the first session on Thursday.
“We know that natural medicines have been used safely for millennia by cultures for healing, and Colorado can do better to ...
Colorado has the nation’s third-longest waitlist for people charged with crimes and ordered into psychiatric treatment
January 24, 2024
By: Jennifer Brown
But private hospitals typically do not take patients who have been ordered into treatment through the criminal justice system. And private hospitals often do not take people with the most severe behavioral problems or those who cannot pay, which means state hospitals are sometimes the only option.
Mental Health Colorado president Vincent Atchity called on Colorado to “disentangle” mental health care from the criminal justice system.
“The number of people being held in Colorado jails when they should be getting health ...
Finding a nonprofit board that fits
January 3, 2024
By: Jeanne Souldern
Over the last five years as a Sopris Sun freelance reporter, I’ve written many articles on mental health. Early in my reporting, I found a steady and reliable mental health advocacy source with Mental Health Colorado, a non-governmental, nonprofit organization based in Denver that, according to their website, “advocates for every Coloradan who experiences a mental health or substance use condition each year. We engage policymakers, providers, the public, and the press to promote mental well-being, ensure equitable access to ...
Decades-old rule pushes mentally ill Coloradans out of hospitals too soon. Legislators may finally change it.
December 11, 2023
By: Seth Klammann
Barbara Vassis keeps a spreadsheet to track her daughter’s years-long journey through Colorado’s patchwork mental health system.
The sheet goes back 11 years, a third of Erin’s life. There are holes in the narrative: Her daughter is schizophrenic bipolar, Vassis said, and she’s moved around different parts of the country. Still, even incomplete, Vassis’ growing tracker provides a glimpse at the revolving doors that Erin and hundreds of other Coloradans are stuck in every year.
From April 2021 to April 2022, for ...
Two Colorado mental health centers merge, creating largest in the state
November 16, 2023
By: Jennifer Brown
Two of Colorado’s community mental health centers will merge in July, creating the largest behavioral health center in the state. WellPower, which provides mental health services and homeless outreach in Denver, is combining with Jefferson Center, the safety-net mental health organization for Jefferson, Clear Creek and Gilpin counties.
Together, the two have almost 2,000 employees and serve about 48,000 people per year. The centers have mobile medication-assisted treatment for patients addicted to opioids, walk-in crisis ...
Denver’s Eating Recovery Center ignored patients’ repeated suicide attempts, state investigation finds
November 13, 2023
By: Seth Klamman
Two young patients repeatedly attempted to kill themselves in a three-week span earlier this year at a leading Denver eating disorder clinic after a doctor told staff to ignore their behavior, a state investigation found.
The two patients — aged 11 and 14 — arrived at the nationally renowned Eating Recovery Center’s Spruce Street clinic in Denver within a day of each other in early June. Both had histories of self-harm and suicidal ideation, in addition to their eating disorders. As their behavior escalated, lower-level ...
Solitary Confinement Reform Challenges Spotlight Mental Health Care Need
October 18, 2023
By: Vincent Atchity
A new law went into effect in July 2022 that limits how Colorado jails and prisons can use solitary confinement for people with certain mental and physical health needs. Some advocates saw the law as a small step forward toward the elimination of solitary confinement, which is associated with numerous health risks including increased suicide risk. Those advocates are right. It would be a small step forward, but only if it were fully implemented.
Full implementation, however, is difficult to accomplish in many, perhaps most, ...
Colorado addiction experts prioritize care for individuals leaving carceral settings
November 7, 2023
By: Shane Ersland
Helping Coloradans who struggle with addiction, particularly for individuals transitioning out of a carceral setting, will require greater availability of adequate treatment services in the state, according to health leaders.
Harm Reduction Action Center Executive Director Lisa Raville and Mental Health Colorado President and CEO Vincent Atchity discussed the state’s addiction-related challenges at the 2023 Colorado State of Reform Health Policy Conference last month.
“At Mental Health Colorado, we acknowledge that humans ...
Navigating mental health challenges in Pitkin County’s criminal justice system
September 18, 2023
By: Anna Meyer
More than half of the average daily population in Pitkin County’s jail has a serious mental health issue, according to a 2022 report by Justice Planners. The high incidence of mental health issues among incarcerated populations is no coincidence; the lack of support for people struggling with mental health often results in entanglement with the criminal justice system.
The criminal legal system and mental health are deeply intertwined and can be tied to the rise and fall in the use of mental asylums, according to Mental Health ...
Access to mental-health resources keeps patients from seeking help
September 03, 2023
By: Anna Meyer
Last year, Mental Health America — a non-profit dedicated to the promotion of mental health, well-being, and illness prevention — ranked Colorado as having the worst ratio of prevalence of mental illness to access to care in the country.
The relatively narrow portion of people accessing mental-health care — 53.6% of individuals with a mental illness received treatment in Colorado, according to 2022 MHA data — is partly due to workforce shortages in mental healthcare, cost of care, and ghost networks, according to Vincent ...
