Strike Out Stigma Bowl-a-Thon planned for three weekends in March

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• A boost for local counseling

  A boost for local counseling

  A collaborative project between the Community Counseling Center of San Luis Obispo County and Transitions Mental Health Association will provide free counseling and therapy to people living with severe mental illness in San Luis Obispo and Arroyo Grande.

  Therapists will be available to assist clients at two wellness centers run by Transitions Mental Health in those cities.

  Until now counseling wasn’t offered among the other programs offered at the centers, such as peer and support groups, and job and housing assistance.

• Forum to explore how SLO County measures up on the 'mental wellness' scale

  Forum to explore how SLO County measures up on the 'mental wellness' scale

  Local mental health experts will explore the question, “How does our county measure up on the ‘mental wellness’ scale” at a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of San Luis Obispo County.

  The panel discussion is set for Wednesday from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the San Luis Obispo City-County Library, 995 Palm St.

  Panelists include county mental health managers Janet Amanzio and Frank Warren, as well as Jill Bolster-White, executive director of Transitions-Mental Health Association.

• Amnesty International activists to participate in worldwide 'write-a-thon' this week

  Amnesty International activists to participate in worldwide 'write-a-thon' this week

  Local Amnesty International activists will join others around the world this week in a “write-a-thon” that will call on governments to protect and release victims of human rights abuses. The event, one of thousands worldwide, will take place from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Linnea’s Café, 1110 Garden St., San Luis Obispo. The public is invited to participate.

  “The actions of people in our community and thousands of others around the world will help bring freedom and justice to individuals being denied their basic human rights,” said Gail Comer, the group’s coordinator and spokeswoman.

  The Nobel-prize winning organization’s write for rights “commemorates the rights enshrined more than 60 years ago in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on International Human Rights Day,” Comer wrote in a news release. Amnesty International USA aims to have a similar event in every state and to generate 250,000 letters from the United States. For more information go to the Global Write-a-thon at http://www.amnestyusa

• Viewpoint: Don’t lump mental illness in with violence

  Viewpoint: Don’t lump mental illness in with violence

  Your article “SLO County ends year with 5 homicides: Mental illness might have played a part in three of the incidents” (Dec. 31) contained careless references to mental illness and violence that seem to imply that illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, in and of themselves, predispose a person to violent behavior.

  In fact, increased rates of violent behavior in persons with major mental illness are largely accounted for by other factors, mainly substance abuse and/or anti-social and impulsive personality traits, which are independently associated with increased rates of violent behavior. Other factors contributing to increased rates of violence in persons with and without mental illness include demographic factors such as poverty, low educational level, and exposure to violence in childhood home.

  When these various factors are taken into account, there is almost no difference in violence rates between populations with and without mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

• Atascadero man's behavior days before killing called normal

  Atascadero man's behavior days before killing called normal

  An Atascadero man who killed his wife in 2008 behaved normally at a family member’s Las Vegas wedding a week before the murder, according to testimony presented Friday.

  The fifth day of evidence presented in San Luis Obispo Superior Court in the sanity trial of Kenneth Cockrell included testimony by the defendant’s stepson, David Landrum.

  Landrum, who got married days before the murder, testified that Cockrell and his mother, Margaret “Peggy” Cockrell, were among the guests at the event. His stepdad “seemed fine” and wasn’t acting abnormally, he testified.