Book Reviews: Mental Health Care in the College Community, Editors Jerald Kay and Victor Schwartz
College educators now recognize that promoting mental health for students plays a key role in achievement. A new book, says Anna Scheyett, fills a gap about planning and implementing essential services. Read her review of Mental Health Care in the College Community.
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News: Teen drug use fluctuates, says NIDA

News: College now a different scene

News: Stigma starts early in childhood
Children believe if someone tries hard enough, he or she can overcome ADHD or depression, suggest authors. . .
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News: Mental health for women, student vets
Hearings to improve services for veterans with special attention to women and students were held with reference to three pending bills. One (HR 784) will list vacancies for mental health jobs in VA facilities. Another (HR 785) proposes "a pilot program to provide outreach and training to certain college and university mental health centers relating to the mental health of veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom, and for other purposes. A third bill (HR 1211) "Women Veterans...
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News: $2000 prize for student activists
The New York-based Jed Foundation which works for suicide prevention is sponsoring a contest for college students who have raised mental health issues at their school. Entrance requirements for submitting a video by Feb. 13 are available at the Jed Foundation....
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Consider This: Highway to wellness
. . .includes mental health
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News: Risky college-age drinking
iStock photoNearly half of those between the ages of 18 and 24 are enrolled in college. And nearly half of those sampled in an epidemiological survey reported a mental health or substance use concern. But only one-quarter of the students sampled (n=2188) said they sought treatment. Comparing non-students to students, the college students were more likely to show alcohol dependence; non-students were more likely to have a nicotine dependence. Authors of the study appearing in the Archives of General Psychiatry...
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News: Resources for college students
To help colleges meet the needs of students with a mental illness, two resources were recently released. Building Bridges from SAMHSA is a rich resource describing problems students have encountered, offering solutions student consumers recommend, and providing community resources. The Jed Foundation makes available Student Mental Health and the Law which answers questions about disabilities, the law, and services. Each is available in a pdf download....
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Did You Know: School-based settings accounted for treatment for emotional or behavioral problems for roughly 3 million adolescents.
Read the report from the Office of Applied Studies....
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Track Legislation: Michelle's Law (HR 2851) goes to president
The Senate passed a bill (HR 2851) allowing college students to retain their insurance if they are health issues require taking a leave of absence. The measure, which the House approved in July, was named for a student named Michelle who died of colon cancer....
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Track Legislation: Michelle's Law (HR 2851) goes to president
The Senate passed a bill (HR 2851) allowing college students to retain their insurance if they are health issues require taking a leave of absence. The measure, which the House approved in July, was named for a student named Michelle who died of colon cancer....
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News: Colleges proactive about mental health
The needs of students attending college while managing a mental illness are being addressed more openly than ever before. In the month of September, typically associated with "back-to-school" news, NPR aired stories about managing depression, and campus organization such as Active Minds, Graduate students are writing about how knowledge of one's illness can influence how to select a program. Last week the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law released a guide, Campus Mental Health with detailed information about legal rights...
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News: Colleges proactive about mental health
The needs of students attending college while managing a mental illness are being addressed more openly than ever before. In the month of September, typically associated with "back-to-school" news, NPR aired stories about managing depression, and campus organization such as Active Minds, Graduate students are writing about how knowledge of one's illness can influence how to select a program. Last week the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law released a guide, Campus Mental Health with detailed information about legal rights...
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Commentary: Helping college students: PADs on campus
When college students need help because of a mental illness, schools often don't know where to turn. Helping college students: PADs on campus could offer an answer. Dean Anna Scheyett and Adrienne Rooks (School of Social Work, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) explain how psychiatric advance directives can enlist students, faculty and administrators.
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Commentary: Helping college students: PADs on campus
When college students need help because of a mental illness, schools often don't know where to turn. Helping college students: PADs on campus could offer an answer. Dean Anna Scheyett and Adrienne Rooks (School of Social Work, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) explain how psychiatric advance directives can enlist students, faculty and administrators.
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Commentary: Graduate school and mental illness...intertwined needs and success


Success in graduate school, like recovery from mental illness, is step-by-step. K. R. Avilés-Vázquez describes how good mentoring became a partner for her.
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News: Violence, mental health and human rights
Several articles in the August 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association address the relationship between violence and mental health. Articles have an international focus, and examine the impact of combat and armed conflict for military personnel exposed to combat; child soldiers in Nepal; children in Indonesia; citizens exposed to violence in Liberia; and sexual violence toward women in India....
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News: Services for college students
The "Mental Health on Campus Improvement Act" (S. 3311) was introduced by Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) to improve services for students on college campuses. The bill aims to increase the number of counselors available on campus. A survey by the American College Health Association indicated one in 11 students considered suicide and the numbers with anxiety disorder and depression had increased. Of the students who committed suicide, barely one in four had received counseling. Click here to read S. 3311...
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News: Beauty queen psychiatrist fights stigma
Dr. Gariane Gunter, a psychiatrist completing her training in South Carolina, was crowned Mrs. United States. According to the American Psychiatric Association, one of her projects includes fighting stigma about mental illness and she plans to start by teaching fifth graders and using Breaking the Silence, educational lesson plans designed by family and educators for students K-12....
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News: Depression in middle school students
A study of African American students (n=474) in Baltimore schools found that children showing difficulty mastering skills in the first grade are at risk for depression by middle school. The students were assessed in the first, sixth and seventh grades....
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News: Evaluating residential treatment for teens
A check list of questions, designed to help parents evaluate services at a private residential treatment program for teens, was released by the Federal Trade Commission. Congress has been looking into these programs which often reside in states having no regulations for accountability....
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News: Covering gap in student insurance
A bill aimed to close insurance gaps for up to one year when medical necessity forces a college student to temporarily withdraw is making its way through congressional committees. Michelle's Law (H.R. 2851), named for college student named Michelle Morse, is based on a 2006 New Hampshire law passed after her death from colon cancer. A similar measure became law in New Hampshire in 2006, and last year New Hampshire Rep. Paul Hode introduced this in the House....
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Announcements: Breaking the Silence authors scheduled for "Today Show"
Authors of Breaking the Silence, a model curriculum for teaching about mental illness in the schools, are scheduled to appear on the "Today Show," Thursday, February 7, 10:00 a.m. Eastern. Read Janet Susin's essay about the this project's origins....
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News: Student privacy in Virginia
In a session that’s certain to invoke the tragedy at Virginia Tech many times, the Virginia General Assembly will be considering changes to mental health laws. One proposal introduced last week strips privacy from students by requiring high schools to forward mental health records to colleges accepting them. It is hard to imagine how this will encourage students to confidently seek help....
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Commentary: Working with youthful offenders: Crossroads
by Judge Linda Teodosio

Judge Linda Teodosio, Summit County Juvenile Court, describes Crossroads, a unique and intense diversionary probation program for juveniles in Ohio. Since 2003, Crossroads has worked with community collaboration to help youthful offenders get the treatment, and the fresh start, they need. Judge Teodosio's program was recently cited as a model for juvenile justice by the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice (NCMHJJ).


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News: Mirrors with a message
In Sioux City, South Dakota, a suicide prevention program distributes mirrors to students in 25 high schools, mirrors that not only reflect an image but are embedded with a help hotline telephone number. It’s part of an educational campaign to make it easier for students to ask for help....
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News: Panel reports on Virginia Tech
The Virginia Tech Panel Review investigating April’s campus shootings was critical of failures to link information and follow up for assailant Cho. It also clarified his history. Among its numerous concerns was whether mental health information should follow students applying to colleges. "It is common practice to require students entering a new school, college, or university to present records of immunization. Why not records of serious emotional or mental problems too?" The answer: "stigma." The Review recommended weighing this against...
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News: Virginia probe unsettling
Knee-jerk reactions to Virginia Tech could easily threaten privacy and confidentiality, and promote social isolation and stigma, as colleges plan for the upcoming academic year. The panel probing mental health services on Virginia's college campuses held hearings, and one of the questions posed was whether schools ought to screen applicants for a mental illness, an alarming idea to some school counselors. A report is expected next month....
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News: Refiguring college mental health services
New England Journal of Medicine, July 12, 2007 Students at Virginia Tech will need counseling for years to come, according to one veteran of school disasters, the principal of Columbine High School. In the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Miriam Shuchman describes how psychologists at Virginia Tech met the immediate need last April, along with programs other collges have implemented, such as expanding outreach or reorganizing services....
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Links: Children and Youth
These organizations explicitly address children's concerns as they relate to diagnosis, education, statistical prevalence, and medication. Updated 10.03.07
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News: Active Minds started from loss and pain
NYTimes, April 25, 2007 Since 2000, when Alison Malmon, learned of her brother’s suicide, the organization she began at the University of Pennsylvania, Active Minds, has grown to 65 campuses. Today they have a Washington, D.C. office, a staff, and a new grant for outreach....
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News: Swarthmore students debate depression, genes and existential suffering
In response to a student op-ed about depression, other students, and one father (Faud Issa, M.D., F.A.P.A), respond....
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