Circuit Riders For Mental Health

Circuit Riders for Mental Health explores for the first time the transformation of popular understandings of mental health, the reform of scandal-ridden hospitals and institutions, the emergence of community mental health services, and the extension of mental health services to minority populations around the state of Texas. Author William S. Bush focuses especially on the years between 1940 and 1980 to demonstrate the dramatic, though sometimes halting and conflicted, progress made in Texas to provide mental health services to its people over the second half of the twentieth century. At the story’s center is the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, a private-public philanthropic organization housed at the University of Texas. For the first three decades of its existence, the Hogg Foundation was the state’s leading source of public information, policy reform, and professional education in mental health. Its staff and allies throughout the state described themselves as “circuit riders” as they traveled around Texas to introduce urban and rural audiences to the concept of mental health, provide consultation for all manner of social services, and sometimes intervene in thorny issues surrounding race, ethnicity, gender, class, region, and social and cultural change.

Named a 2013 Doody's Core Title! Addressing the needs of America's most underserved areas for mental health services, Rural Mental Health offers the most up-to-date, research-based information on policies and practice in rural and frontier populations. Eminent clinicians and researchers examine the complexities of improving mental health in rural practice and offer clear recommendations which can be adapted into current practice and training programs. They bring an incisive lens to factors that contribute to mental illness and prevent access to treatment areas. These include limited resources, reliance on urban models and assumptions, and pervasive misunderstanding of rural realities by policy makers. The text also addresses diversity issues in regard to rural mental health services. Key Features: Focuses on best practices and new models of service delivery in rural populations Provides clear recommendations for adapting new models in current practice and training programs Takes a micro and macro approach to service delivery models Covers contemporary practice applications with specific populations in rural areas

Health needs and health services in rural America are key issues directly related to education as well as community well-being. This report examines rural America's access to basic health care services and discusses options for congressional consideration. The focus is on trends in availability of primary and acute rural health care and on factors affecting those trends. The report describes the characteristics of rural populations and health programs, the availability of rural health services and personnel, and delivery of rural maternal and infant health and mental health care services. On each subject, options for congressional action are examined. The federal government currently finances several different types of rural health care programs, and has a strong interest in health care trends. Major declines in inpatient utilization, compounded by increasing amounts of uncompensated care, have undermined the financial health of many rural hospitals, which also are faced with the outmigration of rural residents to urban areas for care. Policy reform options are presented in regard to: (1) improvement of rural health facilities; (2) availability and training of health professionals in rural areas; and (3) enhancing maternal and infant care programs and mental health care programs in rural areas. This document contains numerous charts, graphics, data tables, and appendices that present background information about the study. It also includes a 745-item bibliography and a subject index.

Integrated care incorporates behavioral and physical health services into primary care and specialty medical environments. Integrated care models are patient-centered; delivered by teams of medical professionals, utilize care coordination, and a population-based approach. This book is practical, office-based, and comfortably accessible to students, residents, faculty, and all mental health professionals, primary care and medical specialists. We examine and recommend applying collaborative care and other existing models of integrated care based on existing literature. When there is no literature supporting a specific approach, our experts offer their ideas and take an aspirational approach about how to manage and treat specific behavioral disorder or problems We assume the use of integrated team staffing including a primary care or specialist provider(s), front desk staff, medical assistant(s), nurse(s), nurse practitioners, behavioral health specialist(s), health coaches, consulting psychiatrist, and care coordinator(s)/manager(s).

The brief, successful Gulf War resulted in few casualties, but there were still recognizable pockets of trauma. This study examines the Mental Health Services available in the theater of operations, the preparations made to train the soldiers for the stress of combat, and details of how they coped with the experience of combat. It assesses the Gulf War in terms of mental health. Some attention is also given to the phenomenon named Gulf War Syndrome. The authors conclude that United States Military Forces were not prepared for the mental health requirements of combat.