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The training session asked workers how they would respond to troubled people — a drug user, an abuse victim or someone with bipolar disorder — that they might encounter on the job. They weren't doctors or therapists, and their employer, a wide-ranging youth outreach organization called The Door, isn't only a counseling center. But mental health how-tos are part of everyone's training, whether they're career advisers or basketball coaches, and reaching out to offer help is part of everyone's job. New York City is about to put that idea to a major test: a $30 million plan to provide mental health training to staffers at social service organizations. They'll be prepared to screen people for possible psychological problems, provide information and try to motivate them to make changes in their lives. (Peltz, 9/19)

Michael Tyree didn't have to be in the Santa Clara County Main Jail. The 31-year-old, who battled bipolar disorder much of his life, was supposed to be on the jail's sixth floor only long enough for a bed to open up at a psychiatric facility. Instead, he was brutally beaten to death in his cell, and three correctional officers face murder charges in a case that is spurring change in the jail system and shedding light on the plight of mentally ill inmates in jails ill-equipped to properly treat them. Hundreds of inmates are in Bay Area jails -- and thousands populate jails across the state -- for the same reason as Tyree: They are waiting for a spot at a mental health treatment program. (Nelson, 9/19)

When a national study listed Louisville as the third unhappiest city in the country, psychologist Kevin Chapman was reminded of why he opened a full-time private practice last year. The study covered feelings of respondents upset over everything from rent hikes to cold weather. But Chapman, a former University of Louisville professor, said the survey's findings overall were about stress levels that more of his patients say they are experiencing. And the effects can be deadly. Louisville Metro Police have recorded 77 suicides this year, a 30% jump compared with this time a year ago and one more than the city totaled all of last year. (Bailey, 9/18)

The federal government will change the rules for prescribing the addiction drug buprenorphine in an effort to expand access to medication-assisted treatment for people addicted to heroin and prescription painkillers, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said Thursday. Burwell also announced $1.8 million in grants to 13 states for rural communities to pay for naloxone, a drug that reverses an opioid overdose, and training on how to administer it. (Leger, 9/19)