Watershed Voice is a proud member of the Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative whose membership also consists of Bridge Michigan, Community Voices, Encore, MLive Kalamazoo Gazette, New/Nueva Opinion, NowKalamazoo, Public Media Network, Southwest Michigan Second Wave, Western Michigan University School of Communication, WMU Student Media Group, and WMU Public Radio 102.1.
Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative
With its new Behavioral Health Care and Access Center, Integrated Services of Kalamazoo builds a safety net for those with mental health issues.
“Trial and error is the hallmark of prescribing mental health medication. This test can help minimize, or even eliminate in some cases, that trial-and-error process.” — Anna Langerveld, president and CEO of Kalamazoo’s Genemarkers
While gaining some understanding of how one identifies is the first step toward being authentic to oneself, what comes next for many LGBTQ+ youth is confusion, anxiety, depression, isolation, fear and discrimination. Help is available if one is willing to reach out.
The 2023 SWMJC Mental Wellness Project produced packages of stories focusing on: the mental health of caregivers, published in March; issues around youth mental health, published in June; and mental health workforce issues, published in August.
Our final series this year is The Science and Art of Well-being: Innovations and best practices in mental health care. This package features four solutions journalism stories, all of which Watershed Voicewill publish this week.
Trained in the treatment of both physical and mental health needs, PMHNPs serve as a bridge between those worlds.
The demand for mental health providers has always outpaced supply. This has only gotten worse over the past few years.
Teletherapy is more common than ever after the COVID-19 pandemic practically made its use a necessity. But as with most things, online therapy comes with both benefits and drawbacks.
Editor’s Note: This story includes strong language and references to suicide.
As mental-health concerns for youth rise, behavioral health consultants provide onsite counseling services to students in Battle Creek schools and across Calhoun County.
What type of support does a child need to recover from the trauma of being shot? A Kalamazoo mother is on a lonely search for that answer.
In Marianne Joynt’s new role as mental health initiatives coordinator for the district, she’s able to go wherever support is needed for staff and students and put together plans to meet their needs as best she can.
The Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative, through its Mental Wellness Project, is profiling six approaches that address the issue through its new solutions-focused reporting series, A Way Through: Strategies for Youth Mental Health.
It can be hard for a kid to navigate the pitfalls of adolescence. The staff at Three Rivers Middle School wants to help. That help comes in many forms, one of which is a program called TRAILS – Transforming Research into Action to Improve the Lives of Students.
Nurses surveyed in 2021 said the most common reason they planned to leave their job was that work had negatively affected their health and well-being. The second most common reason was insufficient staffing. Here’s why it’s important to provide care for them and what some are doing to make sure they get it.
A recent survey of caregivers under age 30, commissioned by the New York-Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative, found 53% said caregiving had taken a toll on their mental and/or physical health.
Young caregivers need more support but where will it come from? There’s an app for that.
This article is part of Overloaded and (Often) Unpaid, a joint solutions journalism project on caregiving and mental wellness between the Southwest Michigan Journalism Collaborative (of which Watershed Voice is a member) and the New York and Michigan Solutions Journalism Collaborative, a partnership of news and community organizations dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about successful responses to social problems. The groups are supported by the Solutions Journalism Network.
Experts in the field agree that some old methods of treating mental illness belong in the past. But one may be due for revival, a professor at Western Michigan University said.
Alek and Doug discuss all things Austin, as Alek heads to Texas for the Independent News Sustainability Summit and 2022 LION Local Journalism Awards. The pair go over which categories Watershed Voice nominated for, Doug decides which sessions Alek and Deborah will attend at the summit, and Alek talks about being a writing mentor for the Voices of Youth program in Kalamazoo.