Glenn Close, the Child Adolescent Bipolar Foundation, Fountain House, and Garen and Shari Staglin of the International Mental Health Research Organization have created a nonprofit organization called BringChange2Mind. BringChange2Mind was created to raise awareness about mental illness and combat stigma as well as provide people with mental illnesses and their families with information and support.  The campaign, which has the support of many mental health organizations across the nation, includes a public service announcement featuring people with mental illnesses and their friends and family members.  For more information on this anti-stigma campaign, please visit: www.bringchange2mind.org .

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The Health Policy Institute of Ohio (HPIO) recently released a policy brief on mental health. HPIO examined data from the 2008 Ohio Family Health Survey (OFHS) to profile the approximately 600,000 Ohioans who reported 14 or more mentally unhealthy days in
the past 30 days as of when they were surveyed. It includes so...me interesting facts on poverty, insurance and employment status of indiviudals experiencing mentally unhealthy days. Click here to read the brief.

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FIND US ON FACEBOOK!
In an effort to update our communications, we have created an organizational page on Facebook. Please follow our activities, action alerts or relevant information on our page. To become a fan of our page, click on the image below or on the top of any of our pages.

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The Ohio Department of Insurance has created an informational toolkit to provide consumers and stakeholders with information about the new federal mental health parity law that went into effect in October 2009. The new law requires parity between benefits for mental health and substance use disorders and benefits for medical and surgical treatments under certain health plans. Click here for more information.

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Mental Health America and the National Alliance on Mental Illness in collaboration with the Depression is Real Coalition conducted a nationwide telephone survey of more than 1,000 adults, showing that the economic downturn is affecting the mental health of Americans.  The survey found that 13% of unemployed adults have thought of harming themselves, which is four times more than reported by adults with full time employment. Adults who experienced changes such as pay cuts or reduced hours were twice as likely to report symptoms consistent with severe mental illness, even though they were still employed full time.  Unemployed adults were twice as likely to report concern about their mental health or use of alcohol or drugs within the last six months than adults with full­time employment.  To read the results of this survey, please click here.

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The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati has launched a website to address Ohioans concerns on federal healthcare reform. Check it out to find the truth about myths and how reform may impact your health coverage.

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The Center for Community Solutions recently released its new issues of their Planning & Action Journal. This issues contains an excellent article about Ohio's Mental Health System and the potential impacts of the most recent state budget. Click here to read the Journal.

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NAMI Ohio is tracking denials from Medicaid or Medicaid Managed Care for mental health medications necessary to treat an individual with serious mental illness. Please distribute this memo to prescribers of mental health medications.

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Medicaid Buy-In for Workers with Disabilities. This program began enrollment April 1, 2008 and is designed to encourage Ohioans with disabilities to work and still keep their health coverage. For more information, read this fact sheet and booklet provided by ODJFS.