A federal judge has denied North Carolina state officials’ motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the state’s use of in-patient psychiatric treatment for children in foster care. Plaintiffs filed a class-action lawsuit in December 2022. Critics want the state to shift its focus away from the treatment centers to provide more support services in the children’s home communities.
Suicides in Ag workers increase leading to a focus on mental health for farm workers.
Conservative and very conservative parents are more likely to raise mentally healthy teens compared to liberal parents, according to a new study from the Institute for Family Studies and Gallup.
A federal court in California is likely to address the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board's lawsuit against major social media companies. The suit filed in August accuses the companies of contributing to a “mental health crisis” among American children.
The head of North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services urges a federal court not to speed up a lawsuit dealing with foster children’s mental health issues. State lawyers filed a motion Friday objecting to a pretrial conference and scheduling order in the case.
According to stats from a new initiative from UNC-Chapel Hill, more than one in ten high school students in North Carolina attempted suicide in 2021, with even higher rates for students who identified as female (23%), black (14%), and LGBTQ+ (22%).
The U.S. attorney in Greensboro has signaled interest in a federal lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s treatment of foster children’s mental health. U.S. Attorney Sandra Hairston’s office filed a statement of interest in the case Friday. The statement arrived one month after N.C. Health and Human Services Secretary Kody Kinsley asked a federal judge to dismiss the suit.
The head of North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services is urging a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit targeting mental health services for foster children. DHHS Secretary Kody Kinsley filed paperwork Monday supporting dismissal.
According to the latest-available set of comparable data, North Carolina ranks 33rd in the nation in “deaths of despair” — that is, in the combined rates of suicides, fatal drug overdoses, and alcohol-induced deaths. In 2020 our age-adjusted rate was 55.5 deaths of despair per 100,000 residents, slightly higher than the national average of 54.8....
The number of emergency-room visits by teens for self-inflicted injuries in N.C., like attempted suicides, rose from 2,362 to 3,259 over this same period — a 38% increase. Teens are also arriving at emergency rooms due to drug overdoses. In 2016, NCDHHS data showed 1.6 drug-overdose deaths per 100,000 people 13-18 years old. By 2021, the rate was almost four-times higher, with 4.3 drug-overdose deaths per 100,000 N.C. teens.
Three N.C. congressmen have joined 35 Republican colleagues signing on to a letter asking President Biden to take a cognitive test. “We again write to you to express concern with your current cognitive state,” reads the letter sent Tuesday to the 79-year-old Biden. Its author, Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, served both Barack Obama and Donald...
