People sometimes wage their most heated arguments over issues with solutions that are elusive because of a lack of strong data. That's the case with mental-health-care reform. So it's good that a local researcher is trying to compile that information.
The researcher, Doris Paez, is the associate director of Forsyth Futures, a group that recently released its second exhaustive report on local concerns ranging from domestic violence to infant mortality. That report also included some important data on mental-health-care reform. For example, only 38 percent of children and 42 percent of adults with mental-health problems received mental-health care during the last quarter of fiscal year 2008-2009 through Medicaid and state-funded services.
The state's overhaul of mental-health care, aimed at shifting the lion's share of responsibility from state hospitals to community programs, failed, leaving thousands of patients lacking adequate care. Some have landed in jails, on the streets and in emergency rooms. The human and financial costs are heavy.
Forsyth Futures wants to use its information to encourage more collaboration, the Journal's Richard Craver recently reported. There have been considerable communication problems among the various organizations charged with helping the mentally ill and their families. Paez is interviewing workers from county government, the school system, local and state advocacy groups, for-profit and nonprofit service providers and other organizations.
"We want to bring together all the parties into the same sandbox and learn about their objectives and how they align or don't align with others," Paez said. "We're trying to get answers for the questions in the community, and we're looking for the gaps in the system."
Mental-health-care advocates often charge that CenterPoint Human Services, which oversees public mental-health care in the area, is neither as transparent nor as effective as it should be. Forsyth Futures' report, set for release in late April, could lead to ways that CenterPoint and its partners can improve their service to the mentally ill, who are some of our most vulnerable citizens.
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