2009 is a critical year. Promised economic recovery and healthcare reform legislation are opportunities for meaningful financial commitments to mental health and addictions services and mental healthcare organizations are offering a practical actionable agenda:
- The integration of primary care services in behavioral health settings: The Healthcare Collaborative Project brings together behavioral health and primary care organizations offering a bi-directional approach for care. The need for behavioral health services in primary care is widely accepted. But the integration of primary care services in behavioral health settings remains controversial despite the fact that individuals with serious mental illness appear to have the worst mortality rates in the public health system. Therefore, mental healthcare organizations are actively pursuing single points of accountability to enhance continuity of care for this underserved population.
- Cost-based-plus financing that supports service excellence: People want and deserve quality services but quality services depend on skilled staff. Low salaries have created – and are perpetuating – a recruitment, retention, and quality crisis for behavioral healthcare. We need a workforce of skilled staff delivering nationally recognized practices within organizations that live by the rule “If you don?t measure it, you can?t improve it.”For mental healthcare organizations, healthcare reform is an opportunity to bring “parity” to public mental health services by ending the second class status of community mental health and addiction providers in America?s safety net.
- Federal mental health funding stream dedicated to mental health and integrated treatment services for the uninsured: The uninsured have exceptionally high rates of untreated mental illnesses with co-occurring addiction disorders and there is no safety net. State plans to cover the uninsured have all but disappeared and federal universal coverage plans may well be incremental. We have large numbers of individuals with treatable mental illnesses and addictions in our overburdened emergency rooms, in jails, and on the streets with no access to services that can engage them, treat them and return them to work. We must stop denying our economy productive taxpayers and wasting human lives.
- Eligibility for social security disability for people with addiction disorders: Addiction has come a long way from the days when it was perceived as merely a failure of will. Today, there is growing public awareness and acceptance of addiction as a chronic, relapsing condition that requires continual monitoring and management, as do other chronic illnesses like diabetes, asthma, and hypertension and yes, mental illness. If we accept addiction as a chronic illness then we must advocate that people with addiction disorders be eligible for disability support.
- Funds to support investments by behavioral healthcare organizations in information technology: We talk about information technology and service transparency, but behavioral healthcare organizations that move forward to automate their clinical systems get no support, funding, or technical assistance. We and those we serve cannot continue to be marginalized. Healthcare reform and economic recovery will depend upon the expansion of information technologies and behavioral health providers must be included.
- Expansion of research-based education and prevention practices: There are mental health and addiction prevention and education programs that work. These include research-based prevention initiatives that reduce the risk of childhood serious emotional disturbance by treating maternal depression, the Nurse-Family Partnership Program that has an array of consistent positive effects across multiple trials, and Mental Health First Aid – an evidence-based mental health literacy program. Now we must adequately fund and support the spread of these interventions to communities across the country.
Here this nice Video about mental health
Be My Friend – www.myspace.com The Truth about Mental Disorders. Dr. John Breeding, Ph.D. psychologist discusses how mental disorders are created by the American Psychiatric Association and listed in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical manual of Mental Disorders. Disorders such as bipolar, ADHD, OCD, Anxiety Disorders, etc. are voted into existence by APA committees. The underlying assumption of biological psychiatry is that mental illness is biologically based despite the fact that no solid …
Find your answer for your own question related to mental health
What mental health services could you benefit from?Hi, I'm conducting an informal survey for mental health services, my question is, if you were to receive counseling or assistance from a mental health services provider, what would you want? For example if you are depressed, what kind of attention/care would you hope to get? I appreciate your time. Thanks!
What kind of skills building? I would probably incorporate some behavioral techniques, like social skills training.
You can work on building interpersonal relationships…(eye contact, tone of voice, etc) and you can give out little homework assignments. Start small and build their confidence to interact in more anxiety provoking situations. (Ex: have them strike up a conversation with someone at the grocery store…then work their way up to initiating conversation with a stranger, etc)
You can practice in therapy and model the behavior. Then, encourage them to practice these skills in real-world settings.
This is beneficial for clients who have difficulties in social situations.
I would agree with WPIC, but thats cause its the only one Ive been too. But they do have GREAT Drs there….and other staff was great too. And it is right next to and conected by a hallway to presby (also great drs there), so if needed patients can be brought over there very easily.