Mental Health Initiative
Stepping away from what are traditionally seen as "first lady" issues, Ritter chose to focus on mental health in Colorado because of its underexposure and its all-encompassing sphere of influence. "It touches everything," Ritter says. "You can't have a discussion about children, schools, families, employment, seniors, criminal justice, substance abuse, medical health, even global warming, without talking about the mental health connections."
Colorado ranks 49th in mental health care funding per capita.
In her first six months as Colorado's First Lady, Ritter has traveled more 2,000 miles around Colorado, learning about mental health needs from its urban, rural, and frontier communities. She has held more than 50 meetings with mental health providers, consumers, government officials, law enforcement officials, and community members to discuss the complexities of the mental health system and the gaps in it. She has met with U.S. Congressmen and incarcerated felons with serious and persistent mental illnesses to talk about how the system can be improved. While she acknowledges that change will not come overnight, Ritter is determined to move Colorado's mental health care system forward.
Ritter said that her perspective on mental health was influenced by her training as a teacher for emotionally disturbed children and having an older sister who suffers from bipolar disorder.
Ritter is a 1978 graduate from the University of Northern Colorado, in Greeley, CO. She completed a BA in Special Education.
Read more about this topic: Jeannie Ritter
Famous quotes containing the words mental health, mental, health and/or initiative:
“Mental health depends upon the maintenance of a balance within the personality between the basic human urges and egocentric wishes on the one hand and the demands of conscience and society on the other hand.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“The entire construct of the “medical model” of “mental illness”Mwhat is it but an analogy? Between physical medicine and psychiatry: the mind is said to be subject to disease in the same manner as the body. But whereas in physical medicine there are verifiable physiological proofs—in damaged or affected tissue, bacteria, inflammation, cellular irregularity—in mental illness alleged socially unacceptable behavior is taken as a symptom, even as proof, of pathology.”
—Kate Millett (b. 1934)
“But from the good health of the mind comes that which is dear to all and the object of prayer—happiness.”
—Aeschylus (525–456 B.C.)
“You will belong to that minority which, according to current Washington doctrine, must be protected in its affluence lest its energy and initiative be impaired. Your position will be in contrast to that of the poor, to whom money, especially if it is from public sources, is held to be deeply damaging.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)