News stories from Counterpoint
Conflict of Interest?
State Lags on Requirement To Divide Case Management from Services MONTPELIER – In 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued new regulations intended to protect Medicaid beneficiaries who receive care outside of institutional settings. Vermont is...
Peer Certification Efforts Continue
After a bill that would have created a statewide certification program for peer support workers in Vermont failed in the legislature last spring, advocates continued to pursue the idea. “When they kind of shut it down, the peer movement, in their own way, went back to...
Town Says Plan To Replace Woodside Mislabels Youth Violence as a Disability
WATERBURY – A growing preference for community-based care for justice-involved youth led the state to close the scandal-plagued Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center in Essex more than two years ago. Since then, the Agency of Human Services has struggled to find a...
Telepsych May Expand in EDs
A one-year federally funded project aims to help expand telehealth-based psychiatric assessments to emergency departments across the state. Thanks to an earmark secured by Senator Patrick Leahy, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration sent...
Founding Director to Step Down
The peer-run respite Alyssum announced this summer that after 11 years, the organization’s founding director, Gloria van den Berg, had made plans to step down. Alyssum held an open house at its home-like, rural property in the White River Valley on Sept. 16. Former...
Walk Calls Attention to Suicide
BURLINGTON – A sunny Saturday morning in October drew a crowd to Burlington’s Battery Park, the starting point for an annual Out of the Darkness walk organized by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. The group of survivors of suicide loss and mental health...
Counterpoint Articles Archives
Arts and commentary from Counterpoint
Courage
Poem by ANONYMOUS There needs to be some differences madeThe old ways are ineffectual, not serving theneeds anymoreWell at least not in the healthy ways.Change.Oh No! Not the C wordNo, it’s too scary, Uh, Uh, no it’s too lonely,its hurtsWhy can’t I stay here in the...
Strength in Knowledge
Words by Gabe Simpson, Rutland I held in my hands, the truth for you to see. I showed you a future that you and I can have. I helped you fight your battles and I cried your tears. I gave you the power to be who you were meant to be. You have become human: after all...
A Tribute to Intentional Peer Support
Poem by Bert Dyer The Three Principles From Helping to Learning Together: For together weBecome who we may becomeTherefore we can hum This silent riddle Which is that which yields true thought.What is or is naught? So you are magic That welds us together, zeal,Binding...
Celebrations, Seahorse, I’ll Love You to Infinity
Art by Cynthia Christensen Art has been a major healing force in my life, and I draw while supporting Vermonters as a full-time peer operator on our Vermont Support Line! These originals are created with Sharpie Markers/Tom Bow Dual Brush Markers to lay down colors,...
Second Project Debuts at Fleming Museum
Paintings by Thomas G. Stetson (Progression of Modern Medicine, left) and Amjed Jumaa (Saint Man of Peace, right) BURLINGTON – A temporary exhibition at the University of Vermont’s Fleming Museum of Art dives deep into its archives and comes up with something new....
Artists Wow Burlington in 2 Exhibitions
Does anyone write old-fashioned letters anymore? In front of the Howard Center at 300 Flynn Avenue in Burlington, a collection of 13 decorated mailboxes pays tribute to the history of the United States Postal Service and to the human bonds forged over centuries by...
A Vermont Advocacy Resource Toolkit
A New Legislative Session Begins in January: Writing Letters to the Editor Is One Way to Have Your Voice Heardby Morgan W. Brown “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” –...
Counterpoint Online Poll
QUESTION: Does Vermont need a forensic psychiatric hospital? A forensic psychiatric hospital would house and treat criminal defendants who’ve been adjudicated incompetent to stand trial or found not guilty by reason of insanity. Vermont does not currently have...
Drugs vs. “Psychotherapy”: A True Story
Essay by Ron Merkin. All names, except the author’s, have been changed. Part One: Drugs “How do you feel about the use of psychotropic medication in the treatment of psychiatric patients?” she asked. Her question caught me completely unprepared. It was my first...
Documentary Sheds Light on Mental Health Court
The term “mental health court” has the ring almost of an oxymoron. But for some criminal justice reformers, such programs (which include Vermont’s Chittenden Adult Drug Treatment and Mental Health Court Dockets) demonstrate a means of reducing the rate of...