Mental Health Guide for College Students
Explains Treatment Options and Legal Rights
Washington DC, September 23, 2008 - Leadership-21, a group of young mental health leaders affiliated with the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, released today a guide for college and university students who experience mental health disorders to explain the treatment options and legal protections available to them.
Campus Mental Health: Know Your Rights! is designed to inform students who want to seek help for mental illness or emotional disorders about their legal rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act and other laws. The 27-page guide is also available online at www.mymindmyrights.org. It also includes information about where and how students can seek help, who can have access to information about their treatment; what kinds of academic accommodations they can request; what happens if they need hospital care; and what types of assistance and support are available for them.
According to statistics from HealthyMinds.org, a website created by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), one in four young adults will experience a depressive episode by age 24. Nearly half of all college students report feeling so depressed at some point that they have trouble functioning. If left untreated, depression can lead to suicide. Suicide is the second leading cause of college students' death, according to the APA.
Leadership-21 developed Campus Mental Health: Know Your Rights! to address student fears about being stigmatized and unfairly disciplined for seeking help with mental health problems. In 2005 the Bazelon Center brought lawsuits on behalf of students at George Washington University and Hunter College who were evicted from university housing-in the GWU case, banned from campus-after voluntarily obtaining emergency hospital treatment for depression. Both cases settled in 2006 and, since then, both universities have changed their policies. As a further outcome, the Bazelon Center developed a model policy for addressing student mental health issues and acts as a clearinghouse on campus mental health issues.
Campus Mental Health: Know Your Rights! offers students information that has the potential to protect them from harm and offer hope during a time when they are particularly vulnerable.
For more information about Leadership-21 and its members, visit http://www.bazelon.org/l-21 or contact Julie Fann, the group's liaison at the Bazelon Center. For information about the guide and its availability in print form, contact Lee Carty, Bazelon Center publications director.
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Media Contacts: Lee Carty, 202-467-5730 x 121,leec@bazelon.org
Julie Fann, 202-467-5730 x 139, julief@bazelon.org
Alison Malmon, (202) 332-9595, amalmon@activeminds.org
The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law (www.bazelon.org) is the leading national legal-advocacy organization representing people with mental disabilities. It promotes laws and policies that can enable people with psychiatric or developmental disabilities to exercise their life choices and access the resources they need to participate fully in their community.
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