Vermont officials have decided to build a new 15-bed rehab unit within the Waterbury state complex, responding to concerns from neighbors that the first proposed rehab site was located too close to a residential area. The long-awaited rehab residential unit would be the first step to shutting down and replacing Waterbury's Vermont State Hospital, the troubled mental institution that has lost federal funding and become a drain on state budgets.

Lawmakers will be in Brattleboro on Tuesday to collect testimony on the mental health, medical and substance abuse services offered in Southeastern Vermont. "We spend a lot of time in the Statehouse looking at mental health services and the issues that communities face," said Mike Fisher, D-Lincoln, co-chairman of the Mental Health Oversight Committee. "But it’s a different experience to go and talk to people about what needs have to be addressed and how is the community responding to them." The hearing in Brattleboro in one of four the committee has planned for this summer, with the others being held in Rutland, Burlington and St. Johnsbury.

Sen. Bernard Sanders on Tuesday heralded funding for a "trend-setting" program that connects members of the Vermont National Guard and their families with federal benefits and services. The $2.4 million appropriation will staff a team of "outreach specialists" at the "Vermont Service Member, Veteran and Family Member Outreach, Readiness and Reintegration Program." The trained professionals, according to Sanders, literally go door-to-door to help servicemen and women address issues ranging from health care to financial problems.

A therapist does not need extensive knowledge about a client's problem to help them solve it, said the keynote speaker at United Counseling Services' fourth annual symposium. Susan Tohn, a therapist and clinical assistant professor at Boston College Graduate School of Social Work, said Friday that she became interested in Solution Focused Therapy in the early 1990s after she and her husband attended a conference on it. Solution Focused Therapy, she said, focuses on identifying the client's goals rather than the problems, and works to meet those goals as well as measure progress.

Maj. Gen. Michael Dubie told legislators Thursday that Vermont's 1,500 National Guard members in Afghanistan are in the midst of a difficult mission, but that the Guard is planning for their return and will not hesitate to turn to the Legislature for money if the soldiers need more mental health or other services than expected. Dubie, the state's adjutant general, gave the Legislature an update Thursday morning on the Guard's largest deployment since World War II.

New Hampshire's largest hospital has scaled back its plan to take on patients from the Vermont State Hospital, posing yet another problem for state officials seeking to replace the state's aging mental institution. Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center had once expressed interest in working with Vermont to build a new mental health facility on the grounds of the Veterans Affairs in White River Junction. As of a few weeks ago, New Hampshire hospital officials said they were interested in a facility that had up to 30 beds – a decent chunk of the 50 plus patients at the Waterbury facility right now.

As a mental health advocate who has lived with depression for 25 years, Rep. Anne Donahue thought few cost-saving plans could unsettle her more than a suggested 20 percent cut to Vermont's $55 million adult psychiatric budget. Then state leaders unveiled a different proposal, "Challenges for Change," that calls for a sweeping streamlining of government, including the entire Department of Mental Health. As a Republican representative for Moretown, Northfield and Roxbury, she understands the need to balance the state's budget, which is facing a $150 million shortfall. But as editor of Vermont Psychiatric Survivors' Counterpoint newspaper, she's already reporting the possible impact on the public of reductions in mental health services.

Mental health policy makers hope to replace the Vermont State Hospital with new facilities linked to hospitals in Rutland and the Upper Valley.  Vermont's oldest psychiatric facility, the Brattleboro Retreat, says it should be part of the solution for the state hospital. Advocates and policy-makers have been working to reinvent the state's mental health care system since 2003. That's when the Vermont State Hospital in Waterbury first lost its certification. Mental Health Commissioner Michael Hartman says some changes have been adopted.

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15- to 24-year-olds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the phenomenon has lately been in the news. Cornell University is coping with a suicide cluster among students, two teenage girls killed themselves last month in Norwood, Pa., and four teens died by suicide last year in Palo Alto, Calif. Scott Fritz, whose 15-year-old daughter took her life in 2003, says there are many things parents can do to prevent suicide. "Educate yourself on the warning signs, risk factors, and very importantly, on protective factors," said Fritz, president and co-founder of the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide.

Vermont's five Democratic gubernatorial hopefuls faced off against a packed house Monday night in South Burlington. The topic? The future of the state's community-based system for folks in need of mental heath and substance abuse treatment, as well as people with developmental disabilities. The Vermont Council of Developmental and Mental Health Services sponsored the two-hour debate, which took place in the South Burlington High School Auditorium. The council promotes a statewide, nonprofit system of care for people with developmental disabilities, serious and persistent mental illness and substance abuse; and children experiencing severe emotional disturbance, as well as their families.

Vermont Public Television, in collaboration with Vermont Law School, the University of Vermont College of Medicine and the Vermont office of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, will receive a 2010 EDGE Award from the Association of Public Television Stations for the “Minds on the Edge: Facing Mental Illness” project. The “Minds on the Edge” project included television broadcasts, a legal symposium and Web-based and on-the-ground community meetings as part of a month-long campaign in October 2009 to raise public awareness about the challenges, solutions and impact of mental illness on Vermont communities.

Governor Jim Douglas today announced his full support for both the Future’s Plan concept and the specific recommendations of the Department of Mental Health. The Governor also announced a funding plan that will allow these new facilities to open starting in 2012 and fully close the Vermont State Hospital by 2014.  The Governor proposes to appropriate any future extension of enhanced Medicaid matching funds (also known as FMAP) to fulfilling the plans outlined in the Future Group report. “Even in difficult financial times,” said Governor Douglas, “good ideas can move forward and be funded in a fiscally responsible manner."

A leading mental health advocate says the state has failed to make progress on treating mentally ill people at regional hospitals. So Ken Libertoff of the Vermont Association for Mental health says the state should replace the aging state hospital in Waterbury with a new facility.

Officials with the state of Vermont, Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center are discussing the possibility of building a secure 16-bed acute-care psychiatric unit at the VA's 64-acre campus that would serve Vermont residents and veterans needing intensive mental health care. Although the proposal is still in its conceptual stage, the state-owned facility, if built, might be staffed by Dartmouth physicians and would be part of an evolving plan to replace the problem-plagued Vermont State Hospital in Waterbury.

A Veterans Administration medical center is using telecommunications technology to expand its psychiatry practice to a community health clinic near the U.S.-Canadian border, allowing for one-on-one consults between doctor and patient 128 miles apart. The service, which will be expanded to three sites in New Hampshire, is available to veterans, members of the Vermont National Guard and their families.