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Download the the link for full information right here! (PDF)What:By the end of this continuing education, participants should be able to: Use new techniques to assess and assist patients with psychiatric disorders with suicide prevention, medication adherence, and medication management. Develop a process to evaluate patients with psychiatric disorders and/or chronic pain to ensure the effective and safe use of medications. The registration fees are as follows:$150.00 - All Healthcare Providers $50.00 - StudentsThe deadline for registration is April 6, 2012. There is a $25 processing fee applied to all late registrations and cancellations. No refunds will be granted for cancellations after April 6, 2012.When:Friday, April 13, 20128:00 am - 4:45 pmWhere:Mansfield Health Education Center2900 12th Ave. N.Suite 30WBillings, MTContact:Robert Parker Phone: (406) 237-4537Email: robert.parker@svh-mt.org

NEW YORK -- Rebuffing an intensive lobbying campaign, a task force of the American Psychiatric Association has decided not to list the disputed concept of parental alienation in the updated edition of its catalog of mental disorders. The term conveys how a child's relationship with one estranged parent can be poisoned by the other parent, and there's broad agreement that it sometimes occurs in the context of divorces and child-custody disputes. However, an acrimonious debate has raged for years over whether the phenomenon should be formally classified as a mental health disorder by the psychiatric association as it updates its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for the first time since 1994.

Click here for more information! (PDF)Cost: $15.00 non refundable - Includes lunch buffetWhat:Increasingly faced with students who present very challenging behavioral issues, most school staff have not be trained as treatment providers, but as educators. Punitive and reactive strategies are often the response of choice, in spite of the frequent negative side effects and drawbacks of such approaches. We will take a look at another approach to classroom management of oppositional and defiant students. A montana licensed psychologist in private practice in Billings, Dr. House was a school psychologist in Bozeman for a dozen years before returning to graduate school in Oregon to earn a Masters and Doctorate in Clinical Psychology. He practiced a couple of years in a private psychology clinic and a year in a psychiatric hospital for children and adolescents, and then shifted to a psychiatric residential treatment facility, where he filled several professional roles during his twenty one years of service, resigning from there this past summer to pursue his private practice. He is still licensed as a school psychologist and is a NCSP.When:March 14, 201211:30 am - 1:30 pmWhere:Student Union Building, Lewis and Clark RoomMSU-Billings, Billings, MTContact:Debra Miller Phone: (406)657-2312Email: dmiller@msubillings.edu

Every week an average of 10 children with serious mental illnesses are admitted to Billings Clinic Psychiatric Center and about the same number are discharged. Most young psychiatric patients stay less than a week. “We try to stabilize them in two or three days,” said Terry Smith, a clinical social worker who cares for kids at Billings Clinic. The kids come from the Billings area, the Hi-Line, Eastern Montana and beyond. Billing Clinic is the only psychiatric hospital in the eastern half of the state that cares for children. It serves all children who need its services, but two-thirds of them depend on Medicaid — the state-federal health program — to pay their medical bills.

Many people know how to respond when colleagues hurt themselves, or are felled by heart attack or stroke. But few know what to do in a psychiatric crisis. The Mental Health First Aid program aims to teach people to respond to psychiatric emergencies, from anxiety to eating disorders to psychosis.

Special mental health courts appear to be associated with lower post-treatment arrest rates and reduced number of days of incarceration for individuals with serious psychiatric illnesses, according to a report posted online October 4 that will appear in the February 2011 print issue of Archives of General Psychiatry.

Click here to download the brochure for this event (PDF) The deadline for registration is April 8, 2011. There is a $25 processing fee applied to all late registrations and cancellations. No refunds will be granted for cancellations after April 8, 2011. If you would like to attend via video conference or webcast, please call Robert Parker at 406.237.8654 or email robert.parker@svh-mt.org. Reservations for video conferencing or webcast must be made by April 8, 2011. Space is limited. To register, call 406.237.3348

Introduction by Steve Silberman: Six years ago, the United Nations declared April 2 to be World Autism Awareness Day. For most of the 20th Century, autism was rarely talked about in public, because the psychiatric establishment — led by a psychologist and popular author named Bruno Bettelheim, considered the preeminent authority on the subject in the 1960s — blamed the condition on the emotional trauma of being raised by a cold, unloving mother. The “refrigerator mother” theory was utterly discredited long ago as an elaborate fraud, and autism is now understood to be a life-long disability caused by complex interactions between genes and the environment. Autistic people and their families are still subject to stigma, however, in part because many of the organizations that view Autism Awareness Day as a fundraising opportunity use fear-mongering language like Autism Speaks’ oft-repeated refrain that “more children are diagnosed with autism each year than with juvenile diabetes, AIDS or cancer, combined.”

Ben Perrick, a resident of the psychiatric institution for most of his life, displayed what the University of Pennsylvania researchers considered classic symptoms of autism. His chart, however, said he was schizophrenic and mentally retarded. Delving into the file, the researchers learned that as a 10-year-old, Perrick had seen Dr. Leo Kanner, the psychiatrist who discovered autism. In his notes from 1954, Kanner described Perrick as "a child who is self centered, withdrawn, and unable to relate to other people," and recommended that he be committed.

Summer is almost over, and parents everywhere are experiencing that inevitable anxiety over how to make the most of the upcoming school year. In my experience, anticipating the hurdles of reentry and carefully structuring the first few weeks of school goes a long way to setting the stage for a successful year, particularly if your child has an anxiety disorder or another psychiatric condition. With that in mind, here are some dos and don'ts for families who want to start the school year right.

For the first time in 15 years, a major psychiatric organization is updating its practice guidelines for treating kids and adolescents with autism. A series of seven recommendations from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry outline the responsibilities clinicians have in diagnosing and treating those on the spectrum. The guidance published this month in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry is an update to recommendations first presented by the group in 1999. It offers clinicians a roadmap for the best assessment and treatment practices for autism, though doctors must also take into account each patient’s unique circumstances in developing a plan, the organization said.

“Treating children at home whenever possible,” said Patrick Gardner, an attorney with Young Minds Advocacy Project, “is more humane, less costly, and more effective than institutionalization.” Under the agreement the state will establish a new program and approach for delivering mental health services called Wraparound with Intensive Services or “WISe.” The program will help prevent adverse outcomes for youth with serious mental illness such as hospitalization, long-­term institutionalization in psychiatric facilities, and placements in the foster care and juvenile justice systems. These are all experiences Smith has known personally and doesn’t want repeated for other kids. “This case,” says Smith, “was about doing something to make a difference so kids with illnesses like mine won’t have to go through the things I did.” Leecia Welch, Senior Attorney at the National Center for Youth Law, agrees. “Approval of this settlement has set the stage for increasing access to appropriate mental health services for Washington’s most vulnerable youth. Better access to care means better outcomes for kids like Phillip.”

The United States is facing a child mental health crisis, and Montana is no exception. Untreated or undertreated child and adolescent emotional-behavioral problems often lead to psychiatric disorders in adults, representing a significant public health problem. In fact, mental illness is the No. 1 cause of disability in the U.S. and in Canada, according to the World Health Organization.

Some changes are being made in response to thousands of public comments on the forthcoming Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but the autism recommendations will likely remain unaltered. A series of recommendations were released in February as experts from the American Psychiatric Association work to draft the fifth edition of the DSM, which is expected in May 2013. In response, more than 8,600 public comments flooded the organization, most of which were related to proposed changes to the way autism is diagnosed.

What: People diagnosed with mental health problems have significantly shorter life spans and are more likely   to have serious but preventable health conditions—including obesity, diabetes, and hypertension—compared to people who do not have mental health problems. Traditionally, the mental health field has focused primarily on a person’s psychiatric stabilization rather than taking a broader, holistic approach that looks at the wellness of the whole person—mind, body, and spirit. Recent preventive and holistic approaches along with complementary and alternative  medicines (CAMs) have shown success in improving the overall health of individuals with mental health problems which contributes to their ability to live a more full and satisfying life in the community. The SAMHSA 10x10 Wellness Campaign invites you to a free training teleconference titled “Prevention and Holistic Approaches to Wellness: A Fresh Perspective on Mental Health Recovery.” This teleconference will educate diverse stakeholders about both peer-delivered and community mental health provider-delivered alternatives to wellness that focus on building resiliency and supporting individuals to establish healthier lifestyles. It also will address how to create educational campaigns and outreach to disseminate information about complementary and alternative healing practices in the context of rigorous science.   When: Tuesday, December 7, 2010 1 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. Mountain

Asperger's syndrome is really just a form of autism and does not merit a separate diagnosis, according to a panel of researchers assembled by the American Psychiatric Association.

Reynaldo Thompson stood before a large crowd of public officials, mental-health workers and mental-health clients under the vaulted, heavy-beamed ceiling of Bozeman’s newest mental-health facility Tuesday afternoon and thanked those in attendance.

The crowd -- which included a state senator and representative, city and county commissioners, a District Court judge, attorneys, public-safety officials and mental-health workers -- had gathered to celebrate the opening of the Hope House and the Dorothy Eck House.“I am totally blessed today,” Thompson, a client of Gallatin Mental Health Center, said.

“I came from a place where I thought Warm Springs would be my home,” he said, referring to the state psychiatric hospital. “But now I’ll be living independently.”

FRIDAY, May 7 (HealthDay News) -- Infections during infancy or childhood do not seem to raise the risk of autism, new research finds. Researchers analyzed birth records for the 1.4 million children born in Denmark between 1980 and 2002, as well as two national registries that keep track of infectious diseases. They compared those records with records of children referred to psychiatric wards and later diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. Of those children, almost 7,400 were diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder.