Taylor Knopf/NC Health News

Once sustained on shoestring budgets, peer-run mental health spaces are expanding across North Carolina as state and local leaders invest in programs led by people with lived experience.

The case raises questions about employee background checks, repeat safety violations and the state’s reliance on residential psychiatric treatment facilities for vulnerable children.

After the rushed passage of a law that could funnel more people into the involuntary commitment process, House lawmakers hear concerns from doctors and hospital leaders.

A dangerous incident involving at least a dozen patients and employees at Raleigh’s Holly Hill Hospital late last year has reignited scrutiny of the for-profit psychiatric facility, which has a yearslong history of safety violations.

The sudden cancellation of federal grants created after the Uvalde school shooting will halt planned expansions of school-based mental health services in North Carolina. The move has prompted pushback from state attorneys general and members of Congress.

Disability Rights NC spent a year investigating the state’s overuse of the legal procedure, which leaves patients locked up at a high cost with few rights.

When federal health officials announced late last month what top officials called a "dramatic restructuring" of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the department’s secretary, claimed: "Over time, bureaucracies like HHS become wasteful and inefficient even when most of their staff are dedicated and competent civil servants. This overhaul will be a win-win for taxpayers and for those that HHS serves."

North Carolina is launching a $20 million pilot program to take law enforcement personnel out of the process of transporting mental health patients being involuntarily committed — aiming to end the traumatic practice of having officers handcuff and transport patients.

As drug experts parse the data trying to understand the factors that could contribute to a sudden drop in overdose deaths, harm reductionists in western N.C. work to stave off a possible spike in overdoses after the destruction brought by Hurricane Helene.

“It is a problem that many policymakers have expressed concern over, and yet kids are still suffering,” said Corye Dunn, director of public policy for Disability Rights North Carolina.