Nancy White

I live in the Midwest (Missouri) and have been enduring over 100 degree weather now for too many days. Not only am I unmotivated, but all my outdoor plants have died. My yard has a few weeds and my grass lies dormant. Snow has never sounded so good. In the middle of this horribly hot summer I have had an experience that I will never forget. A mentally ill client, with legal problems herself, has become a victim of a horrendous crime. She opened the front door to her apartment in the middle of the night and was brutally beaten and raped.

Continuing education is important and the company that I work for Truman Medical Center, provides staff with many opportunities for continuing their education. Over the years I have appreciated the opportunity to attend the American Counseling Association’s annual conference where excellent educational opportunities exist. In my specialized area of work, the National Commission on Correctional Health Care has afforded me the opportunity to upgrade my knowledge in mental health and health care in corrections. I think that you will agree that this is quite a specialized area of interest.

Don’t we all have those days when we feel overwhelmed by paperwork! Consumers need assistance whether in jail or having just re-entered the community and we are bogged down by paperwork. Sometimes it even feels like nobody cares how well the consumer is functioning; they just care how well we document the records.

Almost twelve years ago I was given the opportunity to participate in planning the City of Kansas City, Missouri’s mental health court. It was originally designed for the mentally ill, who had been charged with city ordinance violations in Kansas City, Missouri. The program has expanded to include low level felonies from Jackson County Drug Court, and city ordinance violations in Lee’s Summit Municipal Court, Raytown Municipal Court, Grandview Municipal Court, and Blue Springs Municipal Court, all Jackson County, Missouri cities that are suburbs to Kansas City, Mo.

Well, I am home from my “trip of a lifetime to Israel.” The trip did not include tours of jails or mental health facilities but two days after I arrived, Haaretz, Israel’s Leading Daily Newspaper, in English, had a front page article. The title, Tel Aviv police backtrack, will investigate alleged gang rape on public beach. The article has some very strange twists and turns but the alleged victim of the gang rape has reportedly “received psychiatric care in the past, is reportedly in a difficult mental state, and had recently started drinking again.”