goods morning. welcome to viewpoint this morning as we continue our dialogue on mental health changing minds, we focus on mental health, suicide, resources and help available. our guests this morning provide critical support for residents in montgomery county. dr. raymond crowell, chief of behavior health and human services and karen guthrie cho, welcome to you all. thank you for come in and sharing your perspective and insights on all of the great work you're doing. we want to hear about the services throughout the half-hour. but i thought if we could talk

in a broader sense about what's been at the forefront throughout this community and country, and that's the suicide ofz robin williams. daung this is maybe a turning point to get people to talk about things and talk about the dialogue when it comes to eventing suicide? >> thank you for doing this. robin williams' death is a tragedy that affects the nation and has cost us the laughter that he provided for us over the years. i think what it does is it highlight as continuing awareness and growing awareness of depression and mental illness in this country that seems to be on the rise and gives us an opportunity to tell me there is an opportunity to take a different course than robin took, unfortunately. >> where can people turn? what should someone do if they feel like a family member, loved one or colleague or is struggling. and maybe given to thoughts of

taking their own lives? >> sure. i think that one thing to know is that there are resources out there. there is hope for people that are feeling this way. and there are resources. i think we'll see on the screen the number for the national suicide hotline. montgomery county has a special hot line also through mha for crisis and suicide. montgomery county has the crisis sent you can call and reach out and get support through the kroifs center. we have the access tea so people can call and request services and needs. there are people who can connect you to resources. it doesn't have to end the way that it ended with robin williams. >> i think the important thing for anyone who has a family member or friends or themselves are facing suicide or feeling depressed is to reach out to them but also to make sure that they get the help that they need, to reach out and encourage

them to get help. >> the bonus that's coming out of this is people really sees that mental illness doesn't discriminate. it hits anyone. i think it's one out of five of us will probably have a menty illness of some kind within or lifetime. again, there is hope. there are things that can be done. >> when we talk about mental illness beyond suicide, you deal with everyone from all walks in montgomery county. talk about the various programs and services you provide tlmplt we think of mental health in a broad definition. i's not just mental illness. that's an important part of the mental health spectrum. but at the same time it's wellness in everyone's life from stress from being a parent, from school, from traffic that we know is different here all the

way through chronic services. we have programs such as the hotline that we talk about, a 24/7 hotline were more than 18,000 calls per year for people who need someone to talk to. we do about 1500 suicide assessments per year. we did 12 the day after robin williams took his own life unfortunately. we have programs in the schools. we have the largest provider of school based mental health services in montgomery county. we have a program for people who have mental illness and can no longer take care of their finances. we manage people's finances, about 100 people. we pay their bills and work with them on a budget. it's a full array of services. we educate in the community, educating nearly 50,000 per year with services and tools and resources. open then part of our mission is

advocacy as well, advocating to make sure that it's a mentally healthy environment. >> we've got a lot more to get to. as we go to break, if you would like to learn more or know someone who needs help, here are some resources. we're going to put them on the screen, also phone numbers, too to help.

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welcome back to viewpoint. our focus is on mental health. we've got our friends from montgomery county who are on the front lines of helping people in your county.

scott mentioned the various stressors in our lives, jobs, families. how much in a broader sense does environment and situation play a role versus genetics and family history? >> it's both and. there is certainly a genetic component to depression. research is clear with issues such as poverty, separation and loss can contribute to depression. sometimes it can be short time or develop into a chronic condition. in the last five years we've seen an enormous amount of depression in the economy, people losing jobs and homes and divorcing loved ones. environment is important. >> you mentioned jobs. a lot of your focus is finding employment for young people. >> we have a program that starts with ages 16 and up and goes into the 60s where we're helping

people find, get and keep jobs. having a job really helps you feel like you're a productive person in society. you're getting paid for it. so we really look to help people finish high school, go on to other education whether it will college or some training academy or we help people get a job or be employed. you'll find in our program, the national average for employment with people with disabilities is 20% but we help 70% of the people in our program get and keep jobs. that's the hope that we talked about earlier that you can recover, you can do well even with a mental illness, you can get a job and be a productive member of society and have hope. >> you mentioned that poverty plays a big part in this. >> it definitely does. you think of the cost of living in this area and the stress associated with housing. i mean even if you have a job,

the job isn't necessarily paying all of your bills. that makes it much of of the environmental factors that we're talking about. >> you are in the schools in a significant way and a growing way. talk about your role and relationship with schools in montgomery county. >> we're fortunate to have a great relationship with the montgomery schools that believe in the importance of mental health and well-being. one is several years ago we worked to create a program called red flags that had depression awareness for all aint grade and tenth grade students as part of the health curriculum, a couple of days related to that. there's a county wide collaboration between the school system, between county government and the nonprofit sector called linkages to learning. we're providing services to several thousand students. we provide in the wheaten area mostly anit's all around the county.

there's mental health services, case management to connect people to community resources and help them where there's poverty and connect to the resources that they know that affecting their mental health. most of our services relate to early intervention and prevention because it's spectrum. >> talk. you would about stigma and do you see it diminishing? and particular by are are young people seeking help and reaching out? >> it's a mixed bag. stigma has been with us for a long time. we seen signs that it's changing, cases or incidents where children will bring children to people and ask them to look at their friend because they're not feeling well. weave got a lot more to do towards education. but also to make them aware that there are things that they can do to prevent themselves from becoming mentally ill, to do things to take care of mental illness along the way. our hope is that they will the

decrease the sigma further over time. >> one thing we found out when our medical director went to the apa convention a few months ago, she said that they're trying to not to use the word stigma anymore. they're trying to use discrimination, because that's what it's about, the fear of not being educated or understanding mental illness. you think about what happened with robin williams is one part of that but also what happened at the mental yard. a lot of people think mental illness and they think violence. that's not all it is. if people are in treatment, receiving the medications and getting the services they went, they're actually more likely to be a victim of violence than to purpo purport violence. >> we've got to take another quick segment. as we come back we're going to put up the numbers and resources

on line top. you would like to reach out for help or know someone who needs help.

welcome back again on viewpoint. we're talking this sunday morning about mental health. we had talked during the break about there are chang demographics throughout our region in access and how that has changed with health care reform and so forth. is there more access available and talk about parody, if you would. >> well one of the things that's happened thanks health care reform is that more people are able to have insurance and access services. sometimes that puts a pressure

on our system to meet that demand. i want to take a segue and just say that also montgomery county and some of the counties provide services that have not been able to take advantage of health care reform and enroll and are uninsured. so insurance or lack of insurance should not be a barrier to seeking service. we have capacity to help. parody is included under health care reform in a way that is positive and helping to do an integration of primary care and mental health care so that people are beginning to see those two things linked together so that mental health is an element of health care. there's also a thrust towards wellness or positive youth development and recovery so that people can recognize that we can do things on the front end to prevent mental illness. we can do things to recover wellness and healthy development. the health care reform movement

is helping us around the country. >> you have seen countless stories of success when people have come to you for help. talk about these stories about when people come each out for help. >> there will so many success stories. one person in particular that i worked with probably ten years ago in one of our clinics and he was struggling. he was living with his mother. i was not a great situation. they aren't getting along very well. he ended up having to be taken to a state hospital where he was there for a couple of years but he came back. we brought him back to our program. he moved into one of our 24-hour group homes. he was there for a number of years. he moved into one of our apartment communities which is more independent and needs a little less supervision and now he's in a supported living home where he's in his own apartment and he still goes to the clinic, has a job in downtown silver

spring and he's run the gamut of the continuum of services and he's worked his way to being independent with a job and support op family and friends. we have so many stories like that. >> he owes his life to you. and himself. he's had to work hard and make a lot of different choice to get where he is right now. >> how does the county keep up with the growing demand and our services are growing in. >> we provide training to mental health professionals. you need to make sure there are people who can provide services for people who need it. we had something, it's a coincidence related to suicide planning. we thought we might get 20 people. we had 120 mental health professionals come out last friday. we also go ahead and do training, something called mental health first-aid. it is something that's gang a

lot of national attention. it's a program when you think of a cpr training course, it teaches people about mental health issues. teaches people how to respond during a mental health crisis when it occurs right in front of you. we just worked with the library staff in montgomery county through the support of raymond and his services. >> you've got a crisis hotline that you want to get out there, the crisis center. >> we run a 24/7 crisis resource center. folks who are in urgent need know they can reach us 24 hours a day. it's a walk in clinic and a call in. >> all right. we'll be right back to talk more as we wrap up viewpoint this sunday morning. stay with us.

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. >> welcome back again to viewpoint. we're talking about mental health in montgomery county. we were talking about the changing graphic throughout our region. how has that changed the work that you all do, the need and demand out there? >> it's changing a lot. montgomery county has become a minority/majority community. very multicultural. there's need to provide services that are culturally competent and in different languages. the biggest one right now is spanish. we have a large number of spanish speaking therapists but

the need is greater than the availability of the people that can provide the service. >> a lot of that is coming from young people. we tend to say that the generation after us has it really tough. but we can truly say that now with social media out there. is it tougher to grow up and be a teenager today than ever before? >> absolute lit it is. there's a lot of exposure to children at an earlier age. montgomery county public school system has, for example, in the last year sent over a thousand children to the crisis center for assessment and evaluation. that's more than doubled in the last few years. bullying and the context op bullying has changed the nas of young people's lives. >> talk about the mission of corner stone and the work that you do. >> the mission is to help the people we serve live, work and integrate into the community.

that is, absolutely our mission. i think our vision says it all. it speak to the hope that we want. we really try and, you know, be successful with our mission and to encourage people to choose the goals that they want, not thing we want to hear, but the goals that they are. they are the same goals that all of us have, to get a job, graduate from high school or college, to have a family, to have a home, to buy a car. so we really help them every step of the way. it might be baby steps that we're starting with, but to help them reach their goals and what they really want to do, the hope that you -- actually with a mental illness you can have all of these thing. >> maybe we can help our viewers best if they're sensing some warning signs in a family member, i mentioned colleague before, or maybe in themselves, what should they be lacking for? >> people should pay attention to how it relates to depression,

changing in how they keet or sleep, waking up at night and unable to fall back asleep, their appetite goes to zero or continuously eating, if they become isolated, find thepss with drawing from the things they participate. they should be paying attention to that as a sign of possible depression. they may see their ghaif your change, they may become emotionally up or down, hostile or angry or unspeakably sad. just ceasing losing enjoyment of life and then find themselves in terms of their thoughts turning towards all negative thoughts all of the time and unable to get it of 0 the negative pattern and up to thoughts of suicide or thinking about ending their lives. the important thing for folk to go is that there is treatment for that, they can call when they sart to see the signs and get help from family members, support from the community and call the crisis center or one of the hotline services locally or

nationally they've seen on the screen today and get some help because it does help. >> a lot of times there's fear there. but they shouldn't be afraid. it's easy to reach out. >> it's very easy to reach out. we want to have people watching have a positive message about mental health. we're making a lot of proexpress in terms of parody, in terms of treatment as we learn about biologically how things are connected. the resources that are available. there's help for people who need it and look to access that. >> we want to thank you for come in and sharing all of the help you do and shining a light for all of our viewer us out there. as we say so long on view point, we want to put up the numbers and web addresses if you would like to seek some held or resources out there in montgomery county. now back to news4 today. enjoy the rest of your weekend out there, everybody. how can i avoid maintenance fees?

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