School Connectedness: A Video Highlight
What is the secret behind students staying in school? Interesting courses? GPA? A new CDC study shows the unwavering support of teachers and community members is a primary contributor to students’ success in school. During a June 23 Congressional briefing, experts from the Search Institute, CDC and local schools shared their insight on how to create these essential connections and their lasting impact on students.

By Linda Carroll
msnbc.com contributor
updated 9:35 a.m. MT, Fri., June 26, 2009

By the time she was 18, Cheryl Fike had moved nine times because of her father’s job. For Fike, every move was sad, distressing and alienating.

Story.

While Colorado’s average suicide rate has declined by 6.5% in the past decade, our state still has the 6th highest suicide rate in the nation. In 2007, more lives were lost to suicide in Colorado – 805 – than in motor vehicle accidents or from illnesses such as diabetes, pneumonia or breast cancer. And, sadly, suicide remains the second leading cause of death among teenagers and young adults in Colorado. The impact of lives lost is a social, emotional and economic burden for our state and its residents, and the loss of lives is preventable.

Released at a community briefing today, Preventing Suicide in Colorado – Progress Achieved & Goals for the Future was issued jointly by Mental Health America of Colorado and The Colorado Trust. The report updates both the state’s 1998 Suicide Prevention and Intervention Plan to address Colorado’s historically high suicide rate, as well as The Trust’s 2002 report Suicide in Colorado, which documented the problem of suicide across the state and identified suicide-prevention resources. This report details key facts and figures about the suicide rate in Colorado, many of the prevention achievements in the past 10 years, and recommendations to strengthen suicide prevention and awareness efforts into the future.

Denver’s Court to Community finds success and financial savings halfway through the three-year program.
Kevin Simpson, The Denver Post

The defendants in Courtroom 151P couldn’t look more different: Men and women, old and young. Black, white and brown skin creased by wrinkles or adorned with tattoos.

But they share an invisible trait — mental illness — that often sends them careening smack into a city ordinance. Then they ricochet, again and again, into jail. Or detox. Or the emergency room.

Story

Certain life experiences may lead to brain changes in suicide victims
By Melinda Wenner

Suicide rates in the U.S. have increased for the first time in a decade, according to a report published in October by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. But what leads a person to commit suicide? Three new studies suggest that the neurological changes in a brain of a suicide victim differ markedly from those in other brains and that these changes develop over the course of a lifetime.

Story

The Meaning of Psychological Abnormality
By Jerome Kagan, Ph.D.
November 10, 2008

Widespread diagnoses of childhood disorders trouble scientists such as Dr. Jerome Kagan, who argues here that social conditions, not biology, are often to blame. Kagan elucidates possible reasons for the increase, citing, among other explanations, pressures on parents to raise flawless children. He concludes by proposing ways to avoid misdiagnoses in the future.

Article

Alcohol, nicotine use, personality illnesses common, study shows
Posted December 1, 2008

(HealthDay News) Psychiatric disorders are common among young adults in the United States, but few seek treatment, a new report shows.

The Associated Press
Published: December 1, 2008