Author: Jennifer Brown
-
3 Colorado agencies auditing troubled Western Slope mental health agency
Three state agencies have launched a joint audit of Mind Springs Health, sending state investigators to review documents and financial records at the nonprofit mental health agency for 10 Western Slope counties. The organization, one of 17 regional community mental health centers that receive millions of dollars each year in public funding, has been at…
-
New state law brings hope to Colorado mobile home residents
On a late-August Sunday afternoon, state Rep. Meg Froelich readied the meeting room at the Sheridan Library for a town hall with constituents. There was one item on the agenda: a recently enacted law designed to give mobile-home owners more protections and a way to handle disputes with the managers and park owners who control…
-
Colorado plans changes in state mental health crisis system
WESTMINSTER — Most people who walk in the door of a small, brick building labeled “24/7 Crisis Center” are depressed, suicidal, or experiencing audio or visual hallucinations. Others are young adults going through the first breakup of their lives, feeling so distraught they want to talk to a therapist. Every crisis is “self-defined,” and Colorado’s…
-
Methadone clinics in Colorado have doubled in 3 years
DENVER — They arrive before the sun, lining up for a lifeline that comes in a shot of pink liquid. The doors to the methadone clinic on the campus of Denver Health open before dawn, and the line stretches down one side of the clinic hallway and back up the other. One at a time,…
-
Denver heroin users could use supervised injection site if proposal passes
In semi-private booths, each with a chair and a mirror, Denver heroin users could shoot up with clean needles, no threat of arrest and under the supervision of staff trained to jump in with a life-saving antidote in case of overdose. It would look more like a medical clinic than a party lounge, with floors and furniture…
-
Colorado needs 1,200 more certified foster parents
Colorado is facing a major shortage of foster parents, with a new analysis finding the state needs 1,200 more foster families within the next two years. Nearly 10,000 children spent time in foster care last year, either with foster families or in group homes or residential care centers. On average, 14 children each day are…
-
Confederate flag raised at Denver high school football game leads to injuries, principal says
A Confederate flag flown during a high school football game touched off tense conflict on and off the field Friday night and three players from Manual High School were injured, the principal said in a community letter Saturday. Players from Manual also told coaches that students on the visiting team, Weld Central High School, taunted them with…
-
Colorado community seeks answers after two student suicides in two days, both following social media posts
In the twilight, they pointed the lights of their cellphones toward the students in the center of the circle. They numbered in the hundreds, gathered in a grassy park on a school night through the power of Snapchat. They’ve done this at least twice before when they lost friends to suicide, but this time the…
-
Denver’s new apartment building caters to homeless who have been traumatized after years on the streets
Sunlight fills every corridor, the exit visible even from the opposite end of the apartment building. Its 60 bedrooms have no doors to shut, but, instead, window-sized wall cutouts to see through to the living room. And the “safe courtyard,” filled with deep-pink rose bushes and shade umbrellas, is open to the sky yet fenced…
-
Troubled Colorado state mental hospital can’t keep up with inmate competency evaluations
The state mental hospital cannot keep up with an unexpected surge in court-ordered competency evaluations for accused criminals, the Colorado Department of Human Services said Thursday in asking for relief from a long-standing lawsuit. The department filed to invoke “special circumstances” in a case lodged against the state by Disability Law Colorado. State officials informed…