Mental Health

During an ongoing mental health crisis, without easily accessible long-term care, many Coloradans with serious mental illness (SMI) end up cycling in and out of emergency departments and jails. A new bill aims to create more options by adding treatment beds at a state hospital as well as in smaller community facilities.

The infrastructure bill President Biden signed last month contains potentially big boosts in pay for wildland firefighters as well as expanded mental health services and more opportunities for permanent, year-round work.

"It's the most gratifying job I'll ever have," says a former hotshot. "But it's also a job that made me contemplate suicide and think that my family was better off with a life insurance check than being around what turned into seasonal depression."

Today on Colorado Edition, we talk to early childhood educators about how they’ve been impacted by the ongoing pandemic. And we learn how the end of wildfire season can impact the mental health of firefighters.

The city of Aurora launched a new crisis intervention program last month. The Aurora Mobile Response Team, under the city’s Division of Housing and Community, is sending unarmed, trained mental health professionals to respond to some emergency calls.

From COVID-19 to wildfires to protests and new police reform legislation, officers in Colorado have been dealing with compounding stressors recently.

While a new study suggests that over 1.5 million kids worldwide have lost a caregiver to COVID, young people in Colorado are grieving similar losses.

Police officers often respond to mental health-related calls, but don't always have the skills or time to fully deal with these issues. That’s where co-responder teams — consisting of an officer and a mental health clinician — come in.

A recent survey by the national nonprofit the Trevor Project found 42% of LGBTQ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year and young people of color face disproportionate mental health challenges.

Farmers in parts of the West are experiencing some of the worst drought conditions in nearly two decades. The dryness presents challenges in keeping a farm or ranch viable, and in how farmers deal with mental health concerns.