Yesterday a student who was shot a few days earlier by another 15-year old student at Marysville High School in the State of Washington, died from her wounds. This was bloodiest school shooting since the December 2012 massacre in Newtown, Conn. It has been nearly two years ago that the Sandy Hook School shooting occurred and unfortunately nothing has changed. An innocent little girl has died at the hands of another student and another community will mourn all over again.
Another tragedy and another day gone by where we as a nation have not solved the basic fundamental problem of timely access to mental health services, and where we continue to witness CNN, Fox News, and other media outlets rush to a small town or large city and cover the same old ground -- but with new actors and new faces.
All asking the same question. Why?
In following the news coverage of the mid-term election that will be held today, we have all been struck by the lack of real substance that respective candidates engaged in, especially related to mental illness and guns.
I don’t know if the boy who committed this terrible tragedy had a mental illness but one thing is sure – nothing has really changed since Newtown, the Washington Navy Yard, Tucson and the growing list of communities where tragedies have occurred and people ask: “Why us.”
Unless communities act – I am afraid we will see more of same. But there are several actions we can take right now to reduce the chances of more tragic events like we just witnessed in Marysville or Isla Vista:
- We must invest in mental health and addiction services that promote hope, recovery, and community inclusion.
- We must work together to end discrimination and educate the public on the prevalence of mental health and addiction challenges and recovery through the use of media, advertising, and community dialogues.
- We need to fully implement the Affordable Care Act and the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act to expand access to mental health services.
- We need to invest in communities such as: funding early childhood development supports and using a public health approach to end gun violence.
- We need to create and promote crisis services and partnerships between mental health professionals which should be part of an urgent “to-do” list going forward.
Only by implementing these actions can we begin to turn our communities and our nation from "Why us" to "Never again."
Facilitating Pathways to Mental Health Treatment for Those in Crisis