DAJ ONLINE/ MAY 7 Edition

I have been afforded the honor of being invited to speak at the FaithNet Special Interest Workshop on Saturday, June 14th at 9:45 am at the National Alliance on Mental Illness’s Annual Convention in Orlando, FL. I am looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones.
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12,000 veterans a year attempt suicide while under the care of the Veterans Affairs Department. This piece of information was revealed in an e-mail written by Dr. Ira Katz, the VA’s Mental Health Director. He started his memo with, “Shh!”. Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calf accused the agency of criminal negligence in the handling of the data. Is the word criminal related to crime? Does that mean someone did something wrong? Will someone be prosecuted?
Since I am one of those veterans getting mental health services from the VA and have been since 1969, I have lost vets I knew who just didn’t attempt, but who completed the act while under the care of the VA. They have committed suicide while locked on the same psychiatric unit I was.
What are the numbers for our state hospitals across this country? Our private psych hospitals? Our community mental health centers? Our drug treatment programs?
How many folks actually complete the act while under the care of some system or mental health professional? I have not seen that number. Have you?
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The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has awarded $14.8 million to five sites around the country to replicate the PIER program's approach as part of the Early Detection and Intervention for the Prevention of Psychosis Program (EDIPPP). PIER also serves as the foundation's National Program Office for EDIPPP.
McFarlane [psychiatrist leading the Pier program] told Psychiatric News that preliminary data indicate that the rate of acute schizophrenia per population has dropped within the PIER catchments area compared with the rest of Maine. Though those data remain to be confirmed, staff at PIER who are familiar with the long-term nature of schizophrenia express a genuine awe at the results they see at the clinic.
"I have worked in mental health at the other end of the spectrum with adults who have had schizophrenia and bipolar disorder for years," said Nelma Mason, R.N., a nurse at the clinic. "And I have worked with so many people who are one hospitalization away from never leaving the hospital again. How could you not be excited about being part of a program that might prevent that?"
Thomas Insel, M.D., director of the National Institute on Mental Health, who has visited the PIER clinic, said it represents a new direction in the treatment of schizophrenia.
"We have largely defined schizophrenia as psychotic illness, meaning when someone has a psychotic break," he told Psychiatric News in an interview. "That's a bit like defining coronary artery disease by having a heart attack. It's a late stage in the disease.
"What we have been thinking about is how to get people much earlier in the disease," Insel said. "If you think about schizophrenia in stages, stage 1 is early development and genetic risk; stage 2 is when people begin to develop very early, subtle symptoms such as social withdrawal and cognitive problems.”
"Stage 3 is a psychotic break, and stage 4 is when a person becomes chronically ill and disabled. Most of what we do in 2008 is focused on stage 4. And it is no wonder we have not much to show for it.
"At PIER they are really going after stage 2 and identifying people who may be at genetic risk and exhibiting very early behavioral symptoms," Insel told Psychiatric News. "So they are going down this very interesting path to see if we can have a bigger impact on the disease by identifying and treating people much earlier."
[from Psychiatric News]
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The UK annexed Southern Rhodesia from the [British] South Africa Company in 1923. A 1961 constitution was formulated that favored whites in power. In 1965 the government unilaterally declared its independence, but the UK did not recognize the act and demanded more complete voting rights for the black African majority in the country (then called Rhodesia). UN sanctions and a guerrilla uprising finally led to free elections in 1979 and independence (as Zimbabwe) in 1980. Robert MUGABE, the nation's first prime minister, has been the country's only ruler (as president since 1987) and has dominated the country's political system since independence.
My family went there in the late summer of 1960 as missionaries.
Zimbabwe is now in the middle of an election mess bigger than we had here in this country in 2000.
The hope for the future rests with the people of Zimbabwe. That may sound like an obvious statement to you, but if you look at how we have treated Africa it really isn’t. Missionaries did not just take them the Gospel. They wanted the African people to adopt the American culture as well.
I would like to point out one of the rays of hope which was highlighted at the General Conference 2008 of The Untied Methodist Church.
“Delegates were told that while Zimbabwe has an inflation rate of 200,000 percent – the highest in the world – the university, with a few challenges, continues to operate and fulfill its mission of educating its 1,400 students from 24 African countries.”
"The political situation has not affected the university. Your investment is secure," Tagwira said. "Both government and opposition politicians have great admiration for what Africa University has achieved. We remain open and following our normal calendar. We thank God for his divine favor," he said.
Earlier in the conference, delegates voted to increase theological education on the continent and to make the country of Malawi a missionary conference. Congolese Bishop Nkulu Ntanda Ntambo, chancellor of Africa University and chairman of its board of directors, thanked the General Conference for its support of funding education on the continent but cautioned that the effort "should not be at the expense of Africa University."
Ntambo assured the conference that "Africa University does not take away anything from The United Methodist Church or Africa. It only adds to the growth and strength of the entire church." [from umc.org]
My father was an educator/minister/missionary. Give the people the tools to help themselves. The same message I have been writing about here for months about us. Don’t just label us help us learn something useful that we have chosen.
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My wife and I recently made a trip to Eastern Kentucky. The mountains of Eastern Kentucky don’t look like the mountains of Western North Carolina or the foothills of WNC where we live. Eastern Kentucky is coal country and Kentucky is the third leading coal producing state in the country. It also has the highest rate of prescription narcotic abuse in the United States. It averages one drug-related death per day. Is there a relationship? Not directly to coal, but to the conditions the coal economy has produced. Our response to the problems of Appalachia, Africa, those in poverty, the disabled and those of us with a mental illness seems too much alike. We offer our solutions rather than asking how we can help. If only we believed more in the people we were trying to reach out to and less in our own wisdom, then we might find the real truth that God implanted more wisdom in the least of us than the greatest of us could ever figure out how to use.
You can reach me directly at edcooper@projectdreamagain.com
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