NEWS & NOTES

For Justyn Hosman, March 14 will always stand out in his mind. But standing, at some point in the future, will become something he can no longer do. Hosman, a member of the Bert Nash Center’s Homeless Outreach Team, was told on March 14 that he has ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease. There is no cure; the muscle degenerating disease is eventually fatal. The life expectancy for someone with ALS is two to five years. The diagnosis came after an EMG (Electromyography) at the Universit

As the parent of an autistic child, Kim Turner has had her own struggles. Which makes her really good at her job. Turner is a parent support specialist for the Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center, where she works with parents of children who are receiving mental health services. “It helps to be a parent and it helps to have a child who has had some special needs,” Turner said. “That really lends itself to being able to support other people. I’m able to share from my own

Patrick Kelly will be the first to admit he’s not the touchy-feely type. “In my family, we weren’t huggers,” Patrick said. “We sat around and read books and tried to outsmart each other.” But Patrick, who is director of the Lawrence College and Career Center and is a Douglas County commissioner, has come a long way in his emotional journey. A starting point for him was when his step-daughter, who was in high school at the time, was struggling. “We were at a complete loss,” sa

When Rachel and Travis Bowlin’s youngest son, Gabe, was in kindergarten, they began to hear about problems at school. “Gabe started struggling the second half of kindergarten,” Rachel said. “He was not doing well in school. Gabe is very intelligent, but he just couldn’t conform to the school atmosphere. He was really explosive. I was getting notes from school about his behavior. It was a struggle. That’s when we started looking for help.” That’s when they started coming to th

“I’ve had struggles my whole life, but I’ve always been proactive to get myself the help I needed,” he said. And when he needed help, he found it at the Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center. Mecca has been receiving mental health services for most of his life. When he moved to Lawrence about six years ago, he started coming to Bert Nash. “I’m not sure how I heard about Bert Nash, but I was going through some crisis in my life and I decided I need to focus on my mental hea