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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

NH 1st State in Nation to "Change Direction" on Mental Health

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Monday, May 23, 2016   

CONCORD, N.H. - First Lady Michelle Obama was among the first supporters of a new approach to mental health called Change Direction, and now the Granite State is becoming the first in the nation to launch a statewide effort.

Doctor Bill Gunn is director of Primary Care Behavioral Health at the NH Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency in Concord.

He says Change Direction New Hampshire aims to increase our willingness to talk about emotional stress and mental illness.

It will focus on getting Granite Staters to know the five warning signs of emotional distress.

"To legitimize in the same way we would look for signs of arthritis or heart attack or anything else," says Gunn. "That these are the signs of emotional suffering."

Experts say everyone experiences degrees of emotional distress and nearly one-in-five Americans has a diagnosable mental health disorder.

Gunn says this program opens the door to getting them the help they need.

Governor Maggie Hassen along with most of the state's congressional delegation are expected to be at the State House this morning to launch the program.

Gunn says the warning signs include withdrawal, hopelessness and agitation. Others have to do with an absence of self-care.

"People who are making decisions that are really affecting their lives negatively, so they are not able to take good care of themselves," says Gunn. "And lastly, just any kind of big change in personality. Somebody says, 'He or she is just not themselves lately. I wonder what's going on?' They would feel like they could ask and try to invite a conversation about that."

The public is invited for the event at 10 a.m. at the State House.

Barbara Van Dahlen, the national founder of Change Direction and one of Time Magazine's "Most Influential People" of 2012, will be the keynote speaker.


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