Fairfax County is taking steps to make affordable housing more accessible to people dealing with serious mental illness.
The Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority (FCRHA) will implement a major increase in rental assistance for people with serious mental illness, thanks to a $20 million agreement approved earlier this month with the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS).
“The additional funding is expected to help prevent homelessness among individuals with serious mental illness, as well as reduce census at state psychiatric hospitals,” the FCRHA announced on March 15 reads.
Starting in May, the approved agreement will fund 300 new supportive rental assistance vouchers for Fairfax County residents over three years and three new staff positions to manage the program.
“The new Fairfax County program supports an identified need for permanent supportive housing as noted in the Fairfax County Countywide Strategic Plan,” FCRHA spokesperson Allyson Pearce told FFXnow, adding that funding needs will be evaluated over time.
Details on how the 300 recipients will be chosen are still coming together, Pearce said, but the program will prioritize:
- Individuals experiencing long-term or repeated episodes of homelessness
- Individuals and those whose housing instability frequently leads to crisis, hospital visits, or contact with criminal justice systems
- Individuals leaving state psychiatric hospitals
- People residing in congregate care settings with a high concentration of individuals with serious mental illness
The Fairfax County Community Services Board (CSB) will coordinate referrals from “various stakeholders,” such as state hospitals and the federal Continuum of Care program, according to the FCRHA release.
A separate partnership with the nonprofit Pathways Homes will allow the 300 participants to receive additional supportive services. Fifty of the participants will also have access to services like psychiatry and case management as well as funds for the expenses needed to lease a housing unit.
“The remaining 250 participants will be coupled with two Supportive Housing Teams under a separate contract,” the release states.
Fairfax County Department of Housing and Community Development Director Tom Fleetwood said in the release that increasing access to affordable housing reduces homelessness, and is essential in getting a person back on their feet.
“That is why this funding is so important,” Fleetwood said. “It provides critical support services along with rental assistance needed for people to be successful in their new home.”
Photo via Fairfax County
A mental health facility has opened its doors in Reston, promising to help both clients and new and training therapists.
Columbia Associates — which operates a network of outpatient mental health clinics throughout the D.C. area — is now operating at 12007 Sunrise Valley Drive.
A grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony is slated for 10:30 a.m. on March 20. Rep. Gerry Connolly is expected to attend.
“The Reston Clinic provides comprehensive, individualized care using evidence-based practices that respect privacy, confidentiality, and autonomy,” Columbia Associates said in a media advisory. “Services include therapy, psychiatry, [transcranial magnetic stimulation] therapy, and Spravato.”
The Arlington-based company now operates seven outpatient mental health care clinics in Northern Virginia and Maryland. An eighth clinic planned at 10721 Main Street, Suite 2400, in Fairfax City is expected to open on Aug. 1, according to Columbia Associates’ website.
In addition to mental health counseling and therapy, Columbia Associates provides training to support new therapists, helping them gain the supervision and clinical hours needed to become independently licensed. The company also offers telehealth services and accepts most insurance plans, including Medicaid, Medicare and Tricare.
A health provider that specializes in treating eating disorders has expanded into Tysons.
Monte Nido announced yesterday that it has launched a day treatment program for adolescents in Tysons. Located near The Boro at 8180 Greensboro Drive, the center is initially serving youth aged 11 to 17, but it plans to add services for adults “soon,” according to a press release.
“With eating disorders on the rise for both adults and adolescents, expanding access to care has never been more important,” Monte Nido & Affiliates CEO Cassie McLean said. “We’re striving to make treatment more accessible to everyone who needs it, and this new program will connect more individuals in the D.C. area to life-saving care and increase their opportunity to attain full recovery.”
Founded in 1996, Monte Nido & Affiliates now operates over 50 programs that provide treatment for people experiencing eating disorders. In addition to the new Tysons program, the company’s local centers include Clementine Fairfax in Fairfax Station and Clementine Twin Lakes in Clifton, which both offer residential services.
Monte Nido’s day program in Tysons is designed to help clients transition from more intensive, 24/7 care to outpatient therapy, according to the press release. Its approach to treatment for eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder, includes individual and group therapy, nutritional education and cognitive processing therapy to address trauma.
“Our program offers personalized treatment approaches tailored to meet the distinct needs of each individual,” Monte Nido & Affiliates Chief Clinical Officer Melissa Spann said. “We believe that equipped with the appropriate tools and support, recovery is achievable at any stage of an individual’s journey with their eating disorder.”
An estimated 28.8 million Americans, or 9% of the population, develop an eating disorder at some point in their lives, according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD), a nonprofit that operates free peer support services and a helpline at 888-375-7767.
Calls to national hotlines and hospitalizations related to eating disorders reportedly increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, fueled by the additional stress and uncertainty. According to ANAD, over 70% of people with eating disorders have other conditions, particularly anxiety and mood disorders.
National Eating Disorders Awareness Week will be recognized this year from Feb. 26 to March 3. The annual campaign aims to educate the community about eating disorders and encourage those affected to seek help.
Two golden retrievers will be the stars of a new, Herndon-based nonprofit that aspires to brighten the world with some literal puppy love.
Established at the start of the new year, Canine Concierge Corporation will offer animal-assisted therapy (AAT) services for free to hospitals, nursing homes, senior centers, police departments and other organizations in need throughout Fairfax County.
The idea for the organization came to founder Michael Stokes, a retired information technology contractor, when he encountered a service dog himself while hospitalized in fall 2022.
“It had AAT training, and…it just elevated me,” Stokes recalled in a recent interview. “I mean, my spirit was just incredible, and then, you know, out of the blue, I got flashes [of] just ‘This is what you’re going to do and this is how you are going to do it,’ and then the resources just started to appear.”
The meeting with the service dog came at a fortuitous time for Stokes, who says he had been in the hospital for three months by then and was mourning the unexpected death of Leo, his dog of 14 years. Stokes had rescued Leo while working in Kuwait as a contractor for the U.S. Army.
Hoping to share the feeling of uplift that he got from the service dog’s visit with other people, Stokes began researching how to set up an animal-assisted therapy practice as soon as he got released from the hospital.
The process hasn’t been easy. For instance, after initially planning to work out of a hotel suite as a home-based business, Stokes was told two-and-a-half months later that the hotel’s legal department wouldn’t allow the arrangement.
Instead, Canine Concierge will operate out of a leased Regus space in the McNair area near the Dulles International Airport. The nonprofit recently got a certificate of good standing from the Virginia State Corporation Commission, and now all that’s left is for the IRS to approve its tax-exempt status, a request that has been pending since March, Stokes says.
“That is crucial to the business operation because we need that to apply for grants and also to allow people to get a tax-deductible receipt when they make a donation,” Stokes said. “So, those kind of things, that license is very important, but…it’s out of our control.”
When it officially launches, Canine Concierge will have two AAT-trained golden retrievers from the American Kennel Club named Stella and DaVinci, according to its website. Research has suggested being around pets, particularly dogs, can decrease stress and generally improve people’s mood.
Stokes notes that Leo had always seemed to sense his emotional state, sleeping at the foot of his bed when he felt “normal” and sleeping next to him on a pillow when he felt sick or melancholy.
“They have some innate ability to feel people, and they’re just going to capitalize on that in training,” he said.
Eventually, Canine Concierge intends to convert a hotel suite into a “state-of-the-art facility” for the two dogs, but to reach that point and ensure that services can be provided free of charge, the nonprofit will rely on grants, sponsors and community donations.
The fundraising goal for the first year is $208,000 to cover the training, supplies, marketing and other operating costs. Once its tax-exempt status is approved, donations will be accepted online through Paypal.
Stokes says he can’t wait to take one of the dogs to a hospital for the first time.
“I’m just looking forward to being officially launched, because now, we’re here,” he said. “We’re ready to go.”
As Virginia’s one state psychiatric hospital for youth continues to face bed shortages, additional regional youth mental health services could provide relief to kids and teens in Fairfax County.
While there are options for adults, Northern Virginia doesn’t have any crisis stabilization facilities for youth, according to Daryl Washington, executive director of the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board, which provides mental health, substance use and disability services.
A crisis stabilization facility would provide an alternative to hospitalization, while making it easier for youth to receive psychiatric care close to home.
“It has many of the same services that a hospital would have where they have nursing staff, counselors, therapists and prescribers that can prescribe medication that are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Washington said.
As Washington told the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors last month, there’s no formally committed state funding or a public timeline for a regional facility, whichwould be developed in collaboration with other Northern Virginia counties.
However, state budget amendments approved in September include $58 million to enhance and modernize comprehensive crisis services, and CSB staff, along with county building experts, have toured possible locations.
Plans to build out regional youth crisis services come amid a national shortage of behavioral healthcare workers and challenges with state psychiatric beds in Virginia. The only youth state hospital — the Commonwealth Center for Children and Adolescents in Staunton — is not operating at its 48-bed capacity.
“In fiscal [year] 2019, we were able to get 154 kids admitted to the youth state hospital, but last year there was only enough availability where we could get 41 admitted,” Washington said.
On top of that, Washington says the Staunton hospital recently faced challenges in maintaining its accreditation from the Joint Commission, receiving three preliminary denials between May and July before reaching accredited status in September. That status was confirmed with a follow-up survey in October.
FFXnow contacted a Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services spokesperson for comment but didn’t receive a response by press time.
Although the county also sends youth to local private hospitals, only some of them accept kids, and the wait time for a psychiatric bed can be long, according to Washington
“Last fiscal year, we had 139 kids that had to wait eight hours or longer to find a hospital bed,” he told FFXnow. “For the Northern Virginia region, it was 332 kids that had to wait eight hours or longer before we could locate a hospital bed for them.”
In some cases, the state hospital is a better fit for care. When a private hospital is appropriate, keeping kids local is preferable, Washington said.
“If we have a youth in our community, our number one goal is to try to get them care as close to home as possible,” Washington said. “You almost always get better outcomes when you can provide services and treatment as close to home as possible.”
Elsewhere in the state, a 12-bed crisis stabilization unit for youth recently opened in Wythe County.
“It’s a new service that the state is wanting to stand up and expand, but it just takes time to build that infrastructure and level of care,” Washington said.
Image via Google Maps
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares announced [on Tuesday] the commonwealth is joining 32 other states in a federal lawsuit against Meta over allegations its social media platforms are purposely harmful to children.
The lawsuit alleges that Meta knew about the extent of the psychological and health harms suffered by young users addicted to its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, but falsely assured the public they are safe and suitable for children and teens.
It also claims Meta’s business model exploits and monetizes young users through data harvesting and targeted ads by designing purposely-addictive platform features.
The suit alleges features such as auto-play, algorithms and near-constant alerts were knowingly created with the express goal of hooking children and teens into descending “rabbit holes.” In turn, the suit claims young users can be exposed to harmful content such as suicide and self-harm content, hate speech and misinformation.
The suit claims Meta also has a “deep understanding” of the significant and extensive harms to young people associated with addiction and compulsive use of the platforms, including depression, eating disorders, physical self-harm and suicidal ideation.
Miyares compared Meta to big tobacco companies advertising to children, pointing to the Joe Camel cartoon as a way to hook young people on cigarettes.
“At the expense of public health and specifically the health of our youth, they’ve exploited the vulnerability of our young children and the fundamental desire for connection for their own personal gain,” Miyares said during a press conference on Tuesday.
Additionally, the suit alleges Meta is well aware that kids under the age of 13 are on their platform, but still collects data from these children without first obtaining verifiable parental consent as required by the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
Miyares said that Meta could obtain parental consent using age verification technologies, like uploading a drivers license or official government identification. When asked about the potential for data breaches seen in states requiring third-party age verification methods to access pornographic websites, Miyares reiterated the technology is a great first step to protecting children.
“Let’s try to protect our kids, let’s try to protect their innocence and let’s make sure parents are involved and parents matter,” Miyares said.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin has previously expressed similar concerns that parents need to be more involved in efforts to mitigate the impact of social media on children and teenagers.
Youngkin proposed an amendment to Virginia’s pornographic website age verification law that would have extended the age of children who require parental consent for social media accounts from under 13 to under 18. The Senate narrowly rejected the proposal.
At a “Parents Matter” town hall this August, Youngkin heavily emphasized the importance of parents’ involvement in their child’s social media life.
Miyares said he hopes Meta complies with consumer protection laws and prioritizes the safety of children moving forward, and if not, he isn’t afraid of the fight.
“We would welcome the opportunity to have a meaningful discussion about how they could change their platforms to better protect our children and our teens,” Miyares said. “You chose to fight us, we’ll see you in court.”
Image via Brett Jordan/Unsplash. This article was reported and written by the Virginia Mercury, and has been reprinted with permission.
The Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board will have more money for mental health services, thanks to recent state budget amendments.
The CSB provides services related to mental health, substance use and developmental disabilities. Additional funding could include $2.5 million to cover both staff pay increases and the state’s program to standardize behavioral health community services (STEP-VA).
“We’re kind of getting geared up for all of these great new resources coming, but…me and my staff will be quite busy over the next half year to a year with making sure we get all of these things stood up,” Fairfax-Falls Church CSB Executive Director Daryl Washington told the Board of Supervisors health and human services committee on Oct. 17.
Northern Virginia is likely to receive about 20% of the $78 million allocated for regional initiatives, Washington said.
Washington also told the committee there are five staff vacancies in the CSB’s youth outpatient unit, down from more than three times that at the height of the pandemic. Still, those vacancies make it challenging for the board to meet its goal timeline in assigning youth to treatment, he said.
The CSB would ideally make assignments within 14 calendar days or 10 business days of a youth’s initial assessment. After that point, statistics have shown that people are less likely show up to an ongoing therapy program, Washington said.
“Those five vacancies represent around 125 youth being served at any one point in time,” Washington said. “I really think, if we were fully staffed with those five, that we would be hitting our goal based upon the additional youth that we’d be able to serve.”
The CSB is also looking for an appropriate location to build a regional program that would be licensed as a medically-managed detox center, a youth crisis stabilization center, a youth substance abuse treatment center and a type of youth group home aftercare center, Washington said.
This facility could provide a long-term alternative to Virginia’s one youth state hospital, according to Washington.
“Quite frankly, I don’t know if the youth state hospital is the best place for folks to receive care at right now anyway,” he said. “We really try to focus on getting our youth at some of our local private hospitals whenever we can. I think that’s going to be a multi-year issue that’s not going to go away and that finding some type of either regional or local solution that’s going to work for our kids is probably the better long-term solution for us to go with.”
The closure of several state psychiatric hospitals in 2021 has also created a widespread shortage of beds for adults in crisis. In its most recent annual report, the Fairfax-Falls Church CSB said it had 1,353 individuals waiting in emergency rooms for as long as six days due to a lack of psychiatric inpatient beds.
The 2022 Fairfax County Youth Survey, which was released last month, found declines from 2021 in the percentages of 8th, 10th and 12th grade students who reported stress, depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, though Washington said there’s still work to be done. Read More
The mental health crisis is costing the Northern Virginia region $8 billion a year in unrealized economic output, according to a new report from the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia.
The report from the foundation’s research arm, Insight Region, found that the economic loss caused by mental health has quadrupled since 2019, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic that began in early 2020.
In 2019, worker mental health issues cost the region about 1% in productivity – the equivalent of $2.1 billion – in potential gross regional product (GRP). About 11% of working adults were experiencing mild anxiety or depression in that timeframe.
However, during the pandemic, more than half of all workers reported levels of anxiety or depression. As of May 2023, that statistic held with 53% of the workforce struggling.
The elevated levels of mental health needs caused productivity losses to increase by 2.1 percentage points – or over $8 billion in potential GRP each year, according to the report.
Millions of Americans exited the workforce over the last three years, and one in four blamed their departure on mental health, the report says. That lost employment negatively impacts more than just the worker and their family.
“It also affects team members who must compensate for the lost output; employers who bear the cost of recruiting, hiring, and onboarding new staff; and the local economy in unrealized gross regional product,” the report said.
Most workers with anxiety and depression stay on the job, meaning some of the lost productivity can be attributed to absenteeism and presenteeism – or an employee who is technically on the job but not engaged. This lack of engagement can often result in procrastination and missed deadlines.
Overall, for every worker with a mental health need, their team can expect total productivity to decline by 5% to 13%, or two to five lost hours in a 40-hour work week, according to the report.
“These behaviors can lead to a precipitous decline in productivity, at rates far higher than other conditions,” the report said.
The Community Foundation collaborated on the research with George Mason University. Keith Waters, assistant director at the university’s Center for Regional Analysis, presented the findings [earlier this month] during an event at the foundation’s headquarters in Fairfax.
Waters said the research showed that as mental health issues become more severe, so do productivity losses.
“As you go from sort of no mental health issues to more severe mental health issues, your productivity losses become more severe, you miss work more and then your presenteeism issues become more severe,” he added. Read More
The Oakton-based nonprofit that runs Northern Virginia’s suicide and crisis hotline is now offering mental health services specifically geared toward young, LGBTQ people.
PRS announced yesterday (Thursday) that it’s hiring 40 new crisis workers who have specialized training and experience to handle calls and texts from LGBTQ individuals who are 25 or younger.
The support services are part of the organization’s CrisisLink program, which operates the national, 24-hour 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline for most of Virginia.
“Providing tailored crisis services will help us reach more people and connect them with safer life-saving services and resources that affirm their identities,” PRS CEO Joseph Getch said in a statement. “We now have crisis workers dedicated to this community that have additional training, lived experience, and a dedication to serving individuals within the LGBTQIA+ community. We are proud and eager to provide hope, empathy, and compassion.”
Formerly known as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 9-8-8 was established by Congress in 2020 as the nationwide phone number for accessing emergency mental health support. It officially replaced the pre-existing, 10-digit number on July 16, 2022.
The legislation required the new lifeline to have a “mechanism” where LGBTQ youth, minority and rural callers can access specialized services, because those populations are statistically at higher risk of contemplating or dying by suicide.
More than half (52%) of high school students who identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual or who are questioning their sexual identity reported recently experiencing poor mental health, and 45% had seriously considered suicide within the past year compared to 15% for their heterosexual peers, according to a February report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The CDC report, which examined trends from 2011 to 2021, didn’t address gender identity, but this summer, Denmark released a first-of-its-kind study that found transgender people died by suicide at 3.5 times the rate of the rest of the country’s population.
In Virginia, 43% of LGBTQ youth, including 53% of transgender and nonbinary youth, reported seriously considering suicide in the past year. In addition, 13% of LGBTQ youth, including 17% of trans and nonbinary individuals, attempted suicide in the past year, according to state-level data collected in 2022 by The Trevor Project.
The LGBTQ youth-focused suicide prevention nonprofit attributes those trends to the rejection and discrimination those populations experience in society, especially in a year when lawmakers have introduced hundreds of bills restricting their access to health care, education and other rights.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration rolled out policies in July that direct schools to identify students based on their legal sex and names, though Fairfax County Public Schools has maintained its existing policies that support transgender and gender-expansive students.
“We know these young people face stigma, discrimination, and oppression making reaching out for help and connecting to safe resources incredibly difficult and scary,” Gretch said, noting that PRS is continuing “to evolve our crisis services to meet the needs of different populations.”
Established in 1963, PRS provides therapy, peer support, housing and employment assistance and other behavioral health services, along with its CrisisLink call center, which receives 14,000 calls per month on average, including 4,500 from Northern Virginia.
According to a press release, PRS is one of only four 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline centers in the country to offer chat and texting option to LGBTQ youth in addition to calls.
The LGBTQIA+ service provides several ways to get in touch: text “Q” to 988; press 3 when prompted while calling 988; or go to 988lifeline.org/chat and check the LGBTQI+ box in the pre-chat survey. These options are designed for anyone under 25 who wants to connect with a trained crisis worker specifically focused on meeting the needs of LGBTQIA+ youth and young adults.
(Updated at 3:40 p.m.) A new mental health program is taking shape for women who have recently given birth at Reston Hospital Center.
The perinatal and postpartum program at the hospital will help women adjust to motherhood or develop an attachment to their baby while maintaining their current level of function.
A ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the program is planned for tomorrow (Thursday) prior to the official grand opening on Sept. 25.
“This perinatal/postpartum mental health program stands as a testament to HCA Healthcare, Dominion Hospital and Reston Hospital’s commitment to comprehensive healthcare that addresses the unique needs of women,” Dominion Hospital CEO Ben Brown said. “It’s an initiative that recognizes the importance of women’s mental health and seeks to provide a nurturing environment for healing, growth, and empowerment.”
Women will be treated by a team of clinicians who specialize in perinatal mental health through the voluntary treatment program. It is open to women 18 years or older who are pregnant, have given birth or are one year postpartum.
The program will be open on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in suite 561 of pavilion two at RHC (1850 Town Center Parkway)
Postpartum depression effects roughly 15% of women, according to Reston Hospital Center. It is often treated by therapy or medicine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also recently approved Zurzuvae, a postpartum depression medication that claims to reduce symptoms by as early as day three.
“The significance of this program extends beyond individual well-being,” Brown said. “Research has consistently shown that investing in women’s mental health radiates positive effects throughout families, workplaces, and entire communities. By nurturing the mental wellness of women, we contribute to creating a ripple effect of strength and positivity that reverberates far beyond the walls of any single facility.”