Case in point:

Tammy Lewis, mother to a 15-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son, and self-described bishop Alan Bushey are in custody on “felony counts of being a party to causing mental harm to a child.”

According to a Yahoo! News article, Lewis and her two children lived with Magdeline Alvina Middlesworth’s corpse for two months on Bushey’s advice. Bushey claimed Magdeline (who was 90 years old when she died) would come back to life.

Well, Magdeline did not come back to life, and authorities found her body on a toilet at Lewis’s residence late last week. Lewis and Bushey were placed in custody, and the two children were placed in foster care.

Like the Fritzl case, this is…well, it’s not something you hear about every day. Like the FLDS case, religion is heavily involved.

Ken Jensen is currently rockin’ out in the This Is Why I ROCK! series here at Mental Health Notes. If you have a mental illness and are still living the life you love, head on over the the official announcement post and enter!

Post from: Blisstree

Lewis & Bushey: Incarcerated For Causing Mental Health Harm To Children

This week, which was also Children’s Mental Health Week, was fairly busy at Mental Health Notes. I talked about mental health situations in the news (some…bizarre, and some not so uncommon) as well as well as a few mental health studies such as increasing intelligence and how compliments affect the brain. I told you about NAMI and the DBSA participating in the online Women’s Health Expo, how my local NAMI’s cookout for Mental Health Month panned out, and even shared a few extreme ups and downs I experienced this week. Perhaps most noteworthy, however, is that Ken Jensen took over the This Is Why I ROCK! series slot for the next week!

My bookmarks are overflowing with mental health news-, research-, and government-related information. The Pentagon is working to reduce mental health counseling stigma (I wonder if this decision was made before or after VA mental health director Dr. Ira Katz sent around an internal email dealing with suicide data that had “Shh!” in the subject line?). Researchers in Canada believe celebrities are one reason the number of young people who visit mental health professionals has doubled in the last two years (well, that certainly adds to Tuesday’s conversation about celebrities and mental health), while researchers in Australia believe helping pregnant women cope with depression during pregnancy may lower the risk of being depressed after giving birth. And, sadly, another mental health care budget slash is in the works; this time, in California’s Santa Clara County.

And, as usual, the rest of the b5 Health & Wellness Channel has a slue of stuff going on. In addition to Mental Health Notes’s birthday giveaway, Grace at Kids Health Notes currently has five giveaways going on (some end tonight, so hurry on over!) while Gloria at Cancer Commentary is running an HPV Awareness contest. In addition to the upcoming Living with Pain blog carnival, Help My Hurt’s Marijke has interviewed the author of How-To Marijuana, A Step-by-Step Guide to Medical Marijuana and is hosting a contest to win a free copy of the book. And, for you poets out there, Angelique at Breaking the Mirror is hosting a contest for a free copy of For Keeps: Women Tell the Truth about Their Bodies, Growing Older, and Acceptance. Of course, just when you thought we b5 bloggers didn’t know how to do anything but give stuff away, Gabrielle at Fertility Notes gets serious with tips for coping with fertility problems while Elaine at Genetics & Health the connections between child abuse, genetic changes, and suicide.

That’s all the sanity I can stand this Saturday! Remember, if you have any Saturday Sanity-worthy stories, send ‘em my way for next week.

Top image courtesy of morgueFile.
Middle and bottom images courtesy of Newscom.

Post from: Blisstree

Saturday Sanity: Ain’t The A Kick In The Brain?

In addition to May being Mental Health Awareness Month (or, simply Mental Health Month, depending on where you read about it), the week of May 4-10 is Children’s Mental Health Week and it kicked off with a bang yesterday (May 4) with Childhood Depression Awareness Day.

To help you better understand children’s mental health, or – if you already have a pretty good handle on your child’s mental health – to help you stay current with the goings-on and resources for children’s mental health, I’ve compiled a list of useful Web sites, pages, and articles for you.

You can thank Liberty for this tidbit: The May 2008 issue of Parents magazine features an article about children’s mental health and, fortunately for those of us do a lot of online reading, the piece is included in the online version of the mag. What Can Be Done About the Children’s Mental Health Crisis? includes information about health insurance concerns, doctors’ responsibilities, common mental disorders children have, and some surprising statistics.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) conveniently rounds up links to their children and adolescent mental health-related resources on one Web page, which includes information about the National Child Traumatic Stress Network, the Safe Schools/Healthy Schools Initiative, and the Family Guide To Keeping Youth Mentally Healthy and Drug Free.

Similarly, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) provides one Web page that acts as a one-stop shop for child mental health-related information. It includes links to resources dealing with various mental disorders that affect children and adolescents, mental health medications for children, and articles on coping with traumatic life events.

And, if you’re searching for children’s mental health resources and support in your area, simply google “children’s mental health [your state]“ – this may seem like no-brainer advice, but because of the number of state-specific children’s mental health organizations I ran into during my research, I felt I should pass it along.

Do you have any other resources for children’s mental health information and support? Feel free to share in the comments! And don’t forget to check out Kids Health Notes and Autism Vox for more children and/or mental health related information!

Chato B. Stewart is currently rockin’ out in the This Is Why I ROCK! series here at Mental Health Notes. If you have a mental illness and are still living the life you love, head on over the the official announcement post and enter!

Post from: Blisstree

Resources & Support For Children’s Mental Health Week