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FlaglerLive | June 9, 2017
Clifford D. Van Gorden, a 92-year-old resident of Palm Coast’s C Section, was found by the club’s old tennis courts with a gunshot wound to the head. He had left a note and was suffering from cancer.
FlaglerLive | February 2, 2017
Janis Washburn, the 68-year-old Palm Coast resident found dead in the Intracoastal last week, had spent the last three hours of her life with a group of strangers who took her in to cheer her up. She had long spoken of suicide.
FlaglerLive | January 11, 2017
Steven J. Fortier, 27, of Bunnell, was found dead in the Mondex Tuesday, and 73-year-old William Dessing took his own life Wednesday morning at his Flagler Beach home.
FlaglerLive | November 2, 2016
Palm Coast’s Stacy Culotta is the 37-year-old Palm Coast resident who 13 months ago had attempted suicide-by-cop as she pointed a gun at three Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies in her yard at 8 Pine Brook Drive.
FlaglerLive | September 19, 2016
Universities saw a 48 percent increase in demands for counseling and other mental health services, and an increase in emergency or crisis visits, involving issues like severe depression, acute anxiety and suicidal thoughts.
FlaglerLive | August 9, 2016
Proceeds benefit the Huger Adolescent Campus Project, which includes major renovations of SMA’s facility on Tiger Bay Road to create a new Adolescent Campus that will re-imagine what it means to deliver an exceptional experience for a child going through a difficult time of life.
FlaglerLive | August 6, 2016
Six months before Charles Whitman took aim from that tower he visited a school psychiatrist, and admitted while there that he had a violent fantasy of going to the top of the tower with a deer rifle and shooting people.
FlaglerLive | May 15, 2016
There is broad consensus on the need for more treatment options, more education, more careful prescribing by doctors. But there’s still much debate about the details—and funding–for each of those steps.
FlaglerLive | May 6, 2016
While suicide is increasing for nearly every age group, it’s now the second-leading cause of death for Floridians aged 25 to 34, according to the state Department of Health Vital Statistics, and the third-leading cause of death among youths aged 10 to 24.
FlaglerLive | April 13, 2016
The 2016 census of the homeless population in Flagler-Palm Coast was a dramatic decline from 2015, but also very likely an under-count. The majority of homeless people who have no shelter at all are in Palm Coast.
FlaglerLive | February 2, 2016
Barbara Coxwell, who lost her 15-year-old son to suicide in 2013, and School Board Chairman Colleen Conklin, led the virtual town hall as a first step in a countywide effort to broaden attention to suicide-prevention across all age groups.
FlaglerLive | December 17, 2014
Flagler deputies after hours of negotiations near the Palm Harbor overpass in Palm Coast Wednesday morning stopped a man from killing himself with a .38 by firing so-called “less-lethal” munition.
FlaglerLive | November 29, 2014
Visiting with relatives over the holidays may raise questions about the physical and cognitive health of family members. Although some change in cognitive ability can occur with age, serious memory problems are not a part of normal aging. Recognizing the difference between normal aging and more serious problems can help you identify when it may be time for you to make the call or see a doctor.
FlaglerLive | October 3, 2014
A Flagler County Sheriff’s deputy on Thursday used his Taser stun gun against an 80-year-old man suffering from dementia as the man refused to put down a butcher knife as he sat in his back porch. The man had earlier allegedly threatened members of his family.
FlaglerLive | May 20, 2014
For the second time in five days Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies have seized, with consent, two unrelated individuals’ weapons for safekeeping after incidents involving excessive grief or hallucinations, and fear among cops or relatives of the individuals involved that they could harm themselves if their weapons were left in their possession.
FlaglerLive | April 17, 2014
The Guardian Angels, one of two Indian Trails Middle School Service Learning groups doing projects in conjunction with Palm Coast’s annual Arbor Day celebration on May 3, are raising money to dedicate a walkway at the Children’s Memorial Garden in Waterfront Park.
FlaglerLive | March 6, 2014
In barely a 24-hour period between late Monday afternoon and the early evening of Tuesday (March 3 and 4), deputies were involved in four commitments under the Baker Act, each one is illustrative of the variety of mental health situations deputies are confronting, compelling them to make the determination between simply diffusing a situation, making an arrest or carrying out a Baker Act.
FlaglerLive | March 4, 2014
The Baker Acting of a 7-year-old girl at Belle Terre Elementary last week, following a report of her allegedly lacerating the dean of students with thumb tacks, is one of three or four Baker Acts of students in the district every month, though they’re usually older. The district defends the Baker Acts as a necessary last resort that addresses underlying issues, and that must not be seen as retribution or punishment.
FlaglerLive | February 24, 2014
In a broad-ranging discussion before the Palm Coast City Council, Flagler Sheriff Jim Manfre described a deteriorating mental health landscape affected by age and other stresses, but also pointed to mental health courts and other ways to address the growing problem without turning to cops and jails.
FlaglerLive | February 19, 2014
On Tuesday, the grandfather of Alexandria Rodriguez, an 18-year-old senior who’d attended Matanzas High School last year and Flagler Palm Coast High School until Thanksgiving, came to FPC to retrieve her two younger sisters and inform the administration that Alex, as she was known, had committed suicide that morning.
FlaglerLive | February 11, 2014
At the time, about 5 percent of all U.S. children were treated with psychotropic medications, but in Florida’s foster care system, 15.2 percent of children received at least one such medication. Of these, more than 16 percent were being medicated without the consent of a parent, guardian or judge. Not much has changed.
FlaglerLive | September 5, 2013
Flagler County commissioners Thursday evening agreed to take on a $100,000 mental-health jail diversion program previously paid for by the state, and a $60,000 pre-trial release program they had opposed in earlier workshops. Both shifts took place during a hearing devoted to approving next year’s tax property rate.
FlaglerLive | May 23, 2013
People with disabilities, domestic and sexual violence programs, mental health and substance abuse programs, juvenile justice and children’s services all got bigger budgets for the first time since the recession began.
FlaglerLive | April 11, 2013
Florida lawmakers are moving toward erasing the terms “mental retardation” and “mentally retarded” from myriad state laws, as the word “retarded” has become widely viewed as offensive to people with disabilities.
FlaglerLive | February 2, 2013
Backers of early childhood education and an expansion of Medicaid were disappointed, educators were guardedly happy about raises, and others applauded more money for prevention services to keep youths out of the juvenile justice system, plus $145,360 for juvenile health and mental health.
FlaglerLive | January 28, 2013
Flagler County Sheriff’s deputies drew their guns, then their Tasers, but ended up firing neither as Erik Flores, a 32-year-old resident of Lindsay Drive in Palm Coast, was wrestled to the ground and arrested in the latest confrontation between a potentially violent, mentally ill man and police, just five weeks after another 32-year-old man was shot and killed for wielding a machete at Flagler deputies.
FlaglerLive | January 23, 2013
With a startling personal revelation of her own, Milissa Holland argues in her latest column that if mental illness is to be a focus of gun control, it must be much better defined–and far more de-stigmatized. Otherwise, it’s a shield behind which politicians will do nothing.
FlaglerLive | December 21, 2012
Florida ranks near dead last nationally in the level of expenditures for front-end community-based mental health services. Let’s not be penny wise and pound foolish when so many precious lives are at risk, argues Paula Dockery.
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