Those with mental illness face 80% unemployment

But, the report says that while 60 percent of those with mental illnesses want to work, only 2 percent of people in the public mental health system get help to find work.

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: Report: Adults With Serious Mental Illnesses Face 80% Unemployment
Employment rates for people with a serious mental illness are dismally low and getting worse, according to a report from the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Just 17.8 percent of people receiving public mental health services were employed in 2012 -- down from 23 percent in 2003 (Gold, 7/10). 

USA Today: 'Bleak Picture' For Mentally Ill: 80% Are Jobless
About 60 percent of people with mental illness want to work. And two-thirds can successfully hold down a job, if they're given appropriate support, the report says. Yet fewer than 2 percent of people in the public mental health system receive this help, a cost-effective program called supported employment, which has been studied in 20 high-quality clinical trials over the past 25 years (Szabo, 7/10).

In other news related to mental health --

Minnesota Public Radio: 6 Ways To Improve Childhood Mental Illness Treatment
Seventeen-year-old John LaDue, planned a violent attack on his family and school in Waseca earlier this year, but was arrested before he could follow through. LaDue planned to murder his family and shoot "as many victims as [he] could get" at school, according to transcripts of his interviews with police. "I think I'm just really mentally ill," LaDue told police officers. "And no one's noticed. I've been trying to hide it." The case has once again brought to the forefront issues of mental illness in children (7/9).

The CT Mirror: Children Stuck In Crisis
You've probably heard stories like this before. The number of children and teens going to emergency rooms in mental health crisis, some waiting days for an inpatient bed, has been growing for more than a decade. ER staff are used to seeing a bump in patients at the end of each school year. The emergency department entrance at Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford. But what happened this spring was unprecedented, say people who work at Connecticut Children's Medical Center, parents of kids with psychiatric illnesses and community mental health providers. "I don't remember a period like that before where the volume was so high and we had so many kids where there wasn't a place to facilitate them to, there wasn't a place for them to go to," said Gary Steck, CEO of Wellmore Behavioral Health, based in Waterbury (Becker, 7/10).