LGBT Resources Available

National Council Celebrates LGBT Pride Month

June is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month, and to celebrate, the National Council is promoting several resources from SAMHSA to support community providers’ efforts to improve service delivery and outcomes for LGBT individuals.

LGBT Training Curricula for Behavioral Health and Primary Care Practitioners – A list of six training curricula for behavioral health and primary care practitioners to help them assess, treat, and refer LGBT clients in a culturally sensitive manner.

A Practitioner's Resource Guide: Helping Families to Support Their LGBT Children - Offers information and resources to help practitioners throughout health and social service systems implement best practices in engaging and helping families and caregivers to support their LGBT children.

A Provider's Introduction to Substance Abuse Treatment for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender – Informs clinicians and administrators about substance abuse treatment approaches that are sensitive to LGBT clients. Covers cultural, clinical, health, administrative, and legal issues as well as alliance building.

Three Recent Articles Describe Recovery-Oriented Approaches

Behavioral Healthcare recently published a two-part interview with author Robert Whitaker as well as an article about the Hearing Voices Network; and The New York Times ran an article highlighting the importance of peer support. The two-part Whitaker interview – by Bill Anthony, Ph.D., and Lori Ashcraft, Ph.D. – covers Whitaker’s thoughts about the effectiveness of psychotropic medications (among other topics) and includes a sidebar from a critic of his views.

Said Whitaker, “. . . [U]nfortunately I’m afraid psychiatry no longer knows how to get back on track with honest reporting of what it does and does not know, and honest investigations of psychiatric medications. . . . Ultimately, I think we need a new paradigm built on the framework of psychosocial and recovery practices.” The Hearing Voices Network story, published online, covers a presentation by Daniel Hazen, executive director of Voices of the Heart Inc., and Oryx Cohen director of the National Empowerment Center Technical Assistance Center. They offered strategies for handling the experience of hearing voices. “The notion that peer-led groups might help voice-hearers to tame and better live with their voices was, in the words of one local psychiatrist, ‘liberating,’ ” Behavioral Healthcare reported.

The New York Times article featured the story of Antonio Lambert, diagnosed with bipolar disorder and a co-occurring substance use disorder, who was sentenced to 22 years in prison when he was 17 years old. Today, Antonio trains peer specialists across the United States. The article – the last of a five-part series entitled “Restoring Lives,” about individuals with psychiatric diagnoses who are in recovery – quoted Larry Davidson of Yale University: “Peers are living, breathing proof that recovery is possible, that it is real.”

Sources: http://www.behavioral.net/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=9B6FFC446FF7486981EA3C0C3CCE4943&nm=Archives&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=64D490AC6A7D4FE1AEB453627F1A4A32&tier=4&id=A5BC331586DC4D8B89B194044A0D83F1

http://www.behavioral.net/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=9B6FFC446FF7486981EA3C0C3CCE4943&nm=Archives&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=64D490AC6A7D4FE1AEB453627F1A4A32&tier=4&id=43C2D89CC0364CFA94916B05462A9556#sidebar

http://www.behavioral.net/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=64D490AC6A7D4FE1AEB453627F1A4A32&tier=4&id=2AD887EA1E4847C293174A191EAEA422

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/health/20lives.html?ref=health">http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/health/20lives.html?ref=health

Reposted at http://www.darkestcloset.com/

Reducing Stigma Associated with Mental health in Black Communities

According to a recent article in Behavioral Healthcare, statistics indicate that only one in three African Americans who need mental health care actually receive it, due to significant barriers in black communities such as racism, institutional mistrust, and lack of insurance. A new Web site, BlackMentalHealthNet.com, has been designed to empower the black community by promoting mental health and creating a private space for individuals to obtain information and resources. "Stigma often stifles the conversation regarding mental illness in the black community," says Harvard-trained psychiatrist Sarah Y. Vinson, the site's founder and chief editor. "Families too often base decisions on little information or misinformation. We hope to change that by providing facts and facilitating dialogue around mental illness in an environment of relative anonymity and acceptance." Posted at RECOVERe-works is an electronic circular of The Coalition of Behavioral Health Agencies' Center for Rehabilitation and Recovery.  Reposted at darkestcloset@blogspot.com