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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Ohio Mental Health Services Feeling the Holiday Blues

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Wednesday, December 9, 2009   

COLUMBUS, Ohio - It's more than just the holiday blues hitting mental health service providers in Ohio. Months after state funding was slashed, they continue to experience trying times. The cuts affected housing programs, school-based prevention programs, suicide and violence prevention programs and mental health centers.

Gayle Channing Tenenbaum, a senior policy fellow for Voices for Ohio's Children, says mental health needs around the state run the gamut and affect a major segment of the population, because physical health and mental health go hand in hand.

"It's a part of health. The brain is a part of the body, and we need to see it as that. We need to make the investments - and make them early - in prevention and early intervention. It's everything from a very small child's brain development to a senior citizen who is struggling with depression, to people who are actually on the street who have no place else to go."

She adds that the state's investments in these services are critical to help those who have mental health issues recover and become productive citizens.

Elaine Harlan, president of the counseling and family support group Child Guidance & Family Solutions, agrees. She says local agencies are seeing lines at their front doors as a result of the budget cuts.

"Families have nowhere else to go, because they do not qualify for Medicaid and there are no services available to them due to the lack of financial sources to help pay for their therapy - and they wind up frustrated."

There are fears that even more funding could be lost as state leaders try to patch an $851 million budget hole. Harlan and others hope mental health programs are spared from further cuts, and that new ways to generate income for the state are considered. As an example, she cites Senate Bill 318, which delays a 4.2 percent state income tax reduction in light of Ohio's budget crisis.



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