Mental Health

A program providing mental health services to public school students is close to running out of temporary funding. State and public school officials are still working out a new funding structure to keep providing services.

Tribal officials and various mental health advocates have been trying to find an alternative for nearly a decade. But the Fort Peck reservation is still badly lacking in both secure psychiatric facilities and qualified mental health workers.

Montana officials this week said they’ve found a solution to fund a school mental health program that has been on shaky ground for more than a year. It is still unclear how many schools will be able to keep the program going.

A new state report outlines that Montana teens are experiencing increasing rates of depression and other mental illnesses.

For years, health care workers and people who’ve had to travel for family members’ mental health hospitalizations have been pushing Bozeman’s major hospital system, the nonprofit Bozeman Health, to add a behavioral health unit at its Deaconess Hospital. On Sept. 30, the system’s board plans to consider whether to add one as part of an expansion of its mental health services.

Montana’s mental and behavioral health care system is experiencing a generational crisis. “It’s on the verge of collapse,” says Mary Windecker of the Behavioral Health Alliance of Montana.

A 15-year-old patient died by suicide earlier this year while under the care of Shodair Children’s Hospital in Helena. A state health department report released to Montana Free Press outlines insufficient staffing and inadequate monitoring in the hospital’s residential psychiatric unit may have contributed to the child’s death in May.

Demand for mental health care has increased during the pandemic, and that’s put a spotlight on access and availability of mental health services in Montana. Bozeman Health is renovating emergency rooms at Deaconess Hospital to accommodate patients in a mental health crisis. But, a group of concerned citizens wants to see a dedicated unit with beds. Around 40 citizens recently protested in front of Deaconess.

The Montana state health department is launching a consultation line for rural health professionals treating pregnant women and moms with mental health conditions.

There are more than 30,000 people who fight wildfires in the U.S., and about 400 firefighters have died on the job over the last two decades. As fire seasons get longer and fires become more devastating, the physical and mental toll on firefighters themselves is also growing.