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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) Leaders from across Colorado announced May as Mental Health Month, on Monday, advocating for healing through community efforts. For many, the crises that we ve experienced together this past year have driven home the truth that our physical health and our mental health are not separate, Mental Health Colorado President & CEO, Vincent Atchity said, Health is all of us. Mental health and trauma and hard times don t have a clean a start and finish. Not in time. Not among people. We re all experiencing this together in different phases.
According to the Colorado Department of Human Services, more than 1 million Coloradans, or 20% of the state s population, are currently living with a diagnosed mental health condition.
Eric Galatas
Chalkbeat Colorado
This story, Expanded SNAP benefits helping college students during COVID, was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education. Sign up for their newsletters here: ckbe.at/newsletters
Thousands of low-income college students in Colorado now have an easier path to food assistance during the pandemic, after the federal government issued temporary changes to its qualification policies for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the program previously known as food stamps.
All students who qualify also will receive the maximum amount for their household size.
Benu Amun-Ra, a graduate student at Naropa University, cares for her child and mother, and said SNAP has been a game changer.
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Colorado spends more than a billion dollars a year on mental health and substance use care, but many of those who need help have a hard time navigating the system.
A bipartisan bill that Governor Jared Polis signed into law on April 22 lays the groundwork for a new government entity to manage the state’s myriad programs in one central place and streamline care. In September, Colorado’s Behavioral Health Task Force unanimously recommended the state establish such an agency as one of several strategies for reforming the state’s behavioral health-care system.
This new entity, the Behavioral Health Administration, won’t appear right away. But House Bill 21-1097 sponsored by Representatives Mary Young (a Democrat from Greeley) and Rod Pelton (a Republican from Cheyenne Wells), along with Senators Rhonda Fields (a Democrat from Aurora) and Bob Gardner (a Republican from Colorado Springs) directs the Colorado Department of Human Services to establish the BHA by July 2022. The BH
Worsening mental health, particularly among young Americans, has emerged as a major concern during the pandemic, and Colorado lawmakers have taken notice.
HB21-1258, introduced in the House on April 6, would create a temporary âyouth mental health services programâ under the Colorado Department of Human Services, which would reimburse mental health providers for administering up to three free therapy sessions for young people in Colorado who may be suffering from mental distress. The bill has received bipartisan support and acknowledges there has been a rise in depression and suicide among Colorado youths amid the pandemic. In El Paso County, the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment noted a 54 percent increase in youth suicide in 2020.