Behavioral Healthcare

Publisher

Work in Progress

To gain more perspective on the state's progress with mental health system transformation, I asked Mary Ann Bergeron, executive director of the Virginia Association of Community Services Boards, to contribute to this past Aprils issue. In its 2006 (hailing the States report, the National Alliance on Mental Illness had this to say of Virginia, which received an overall grade ol D: Ij he- reality [is] thai Virginia's public system has sutfered from years of deep cms thai fell disproportionate!...

Tools For Transformation

Recovery Blows in On the Winds of Change

Things are warming up in the Midwest as well, according to Debra Johnson, associate director ol program operations for the St. Clair County Community Mental Health Authority in Port Huron, Michigan. Douglas 1 lead, regional director for the Children's Home Society in Wenatchee, Washington, says, The KRSA program helps us emphasize, support, and build a culture that in turn promotes resiliency in the children we serve.

Facility Design Showcase

Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre and University of Ottawa Institute of Mental Health Research

The new Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre and its affiliated research institute were developed as a private-public partnership, known as an alternative financing procurement, which ensures the public delivery of healthcare in a facility designed, built, financed, and maintained to exact specifications set by the Royal Ottawa Health are Group (ROHCG).

Perspectives

Virginia Tech's Larger Lessons

Community services boards ('SBs) and behavioral health authorities Bl IAsI .nv the local government agents that have responsibility under Virginia law tor many of the clinical and administrative aspects of the involuntary commitment process.

Increase Consumers' Role in System Reform

The immediate response by the media and the public to the tragedy at Virginia Tech, predictably, reinforced the stereotv pe equating mental illness with violent behavior, producing the usual calls for increased legal intervention in the lives of people with mental illnesses. Four decades ago reform proponents lived in a time of optimism, energy, and innovation, thinking about mental health in broad terms and envisioning an imaginative- array of community-based initiatives to supplant the sta...

Considering a Public Health Approach

Several of the federal agencies in the Department of Health and Human Services (the Health Resources and Services Administration, Indian Health Service, SAMHSA, and CDC) deliver public health services, lhe American Public Health Association advocates for better public health infrastructure, in a terrorist attack, avian flu pandemic, or natural disaster, state and local public health agencies would be among the first responders. Hence, the best care for an avian flu pandemic would be to preve...

Raising Our Umbrella

Another widely recognized umbrella organization is the International Olympic oininiitee, w Meli represents International Sports Federations (IFs), nongovernmental organizations administering one or several sports at the world Jeic-1 and encompassing organizations administering the spoils ai the national level. An umbrella organization would shelter us as we build comprehensive educational programs for persons delivering addiction treatment, develop complex public-policy programs and public ...

Community Collaboration

Blazing a New Trail for Mental Health Consumers

Key Agencies Mental Health Committee members include distinguished and prominentcommunity leaders, including: * Commissioners' Court project manager (chair); * staff member from the office of the state senator who represents Williamson County; * the vice-chair of the Board of Trustees for Bluebonnet Trails; * Williamson County district attorney; * Williamson County assistant county attorney; * Williamson County commissioner; and * representatives from the sheriff's office, adult probation ser...

Keeping Youths Close to Home

The executive directors from Southeast Mental Health Services, Prowers County Department or Social Services, and Southeast Colorado tor Drug Free Communities saw the benefit of developing a partnership and formed a limited liability corporation that would serve not only youths in legal trouble, but also those in family crises, those in emotional crises, or yout lis st niggling wit h substance abuse problems. PCYCs main goals are to: * strengthen families by promoting a positive parent/child ...

Information Technology

Restarting a Provider Organization

Three technologic developments were central to Northwood's transformation: * designing a customized electronic clinical scheduling system; * implementing an electronic medical record (EMR) system; and * using thin-client technology. Northwood then combined the electronic digital signature capture technology with an internally developed two-dimensional bar-coding system to almost eliminate the need for human intervention in records management. Lor example, the computer might read the number ...

System Transformation

Opportunity Born From Tragedy

Following the campus polices intervention, Cho was taken to their campus headquarters, where the emergency stall from Neu River Valley Community Services board, the local mental health agency in Blacksburg, prescreened Cho. Virginia's public, community-based mental health system was created by legislation in 1968, which directed every political jurisdiction, either separately or in combination, to create an organization, referred to in the legislation as a community services board, to provid...

Four Pillars That Support Change

The WCHO also operates in close partnership with the county's Public Health Department, the Washtenaw Health Plan (a county-based health plan for adults who are indigent, are uninsured, or have low incomes and who do not quality for state or federal programs), and Community Support and Treatment Services, the primary provider of community mental health services. Based on the concept of a medical home, in which each individual receives complete care in the settingof his/her choice, we have pl...

Workforce Development

Building a Stronger Workforce in Rural America

Initiative One is the expansion of a psychiatry residency and fellowship training program at Royal Oaks Hospital, a training program approved by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education tor general psychiatry residents, child/adolescent psychiatry fellows, and geriatric psychiatry IeI lows from the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC) School of Medicine's Department of Psychiatry. Initiative Th ree aims to increase the number of clinical psychology internships and residencie...

E-Learning's Impact On Consumer Employees

Specific training sessions that could be offered online, based on a list in Wilma Townsend and Grisetta Griffin's Consumers in the Mental Health Workforce: A Handbook for Community Providers, include: * Duties outlined in the job description * Information needed to do the job (record keeping, charting, progress notes, etc.; crisis intervention/incident reporting; quality improvement/utilization review practices; supervision, ethics, available supports, such as mentoring or coaching; patient r...

Performance Improvement

Good Intentions, but Few Results

( 1 ) the greater separation ol mental and substance-use health care from general health care; (2) the separation of mental and substanceuse health from each other; (3) society's reliance on the education, child welfare and ot her non-health care sectors to secure M/SU services for many children and adults; and (4) the location of services needed by individuals with more severe M/SU illnesses in public sector programs apart I rom private sector health care.2 It's not that we haven't tried to ...