Mental health professionals are drumming up new, more diverse ways to help struggling farmers.

For the first time since 1990, the state agency that provides care to adults diagnosed with a serious mental illness has no staff on Lanai. The problem is a microcosm of a statewide mental health care crisis.

Meanwhile, the state is preparing for the launch of a new hotline akin to 911 for mental health support.

In Hawaii, mental health providers say they’re only beginning to see the repercussions of forced social isolation and distance learning on young people.

Hawaii had more survey participants say they had been thinking about suicide during the pandemic than any other state.

Calls to crisis hotlines and hospital admissions for psychiatric problems increased in 2020, but preliminary data shows no evidence of a spike in suicides.

Experts say the preliminary data is an encouraging indicator that people are paying closer attention to their mental health and getting help.