I am just getting back into the swing of things here at work, but I keep thinking of the wonderful week that I had last week at the conference in Boston with the National Council. It was great to meet with you and your staff and I cannot compliment you enough on what an outstanding job you all did to bring this conference together. It was organized, productive and very inspirational to me. You should all be very proud of the work that you did on this and on your work every day on behalf of people living with mental illness and addiction disorders. We could not continue to do this important work without the Council’s support and advocacy.
I look forward to working more with the Council and please let me know what I can be doing as an executive and individually to continue to promote our cause and to “tell the story” of the fine work we all do!
I look forward to seeing you again and again, great job on the conference.
Adequate care requires adequate dollars. Public insurance pays for at least 75 percent of treatment services for people with chronic and serious mental illnesses in community settings. Despite its discriminatory approach, it is the only option for millions of poor, unemployed, homeless, incarcerated and other vulnerable populations with mental illness. So we must act to end the discrimination. We must eliminate ongoing and threatened cuts to Medicaid. And Medicare must stop requiring higher co-pays from people with mental illness, while strengthening its sadly inadequate mental health benefits package.
A woman with depression chats openly with a mental health professional she has never met in person. A gentleman attending a multi-national meeting cannot negotiate the steps because of his cerebral palsy, so he “flies” his wheelchair onto the stage where he gives a presentation on the power of modern computing. A lonely, elderly man in the United States spends an evening sharing his feelings with a girlfriend in Chile.
In “virtual space” web visits are truly real and interactive for the first time. The essence of meaningful interaction is a caring conversation, the exchange and sharing of thoughts and emotions through language, which is at the heart of the online community Second Life. While there are limitations, they are of technology, not of imagination and creativity.
Skeptics argue that it is a make believe world, only pixels on a screen, while the ubber geek knows the mechanisms for communication are not virtual; the digital device doesn’t classify input/output as real versus imaginary. The logs of every conversation, every meeting and every training session are stored on her computer. At present virtual worlds are restricted to audio, video, 3D visuals and spoken language … but only for now!
The National Council has setup operations in this “virtual space” through generous donations of time and effort from volunteers. Next week’s “virtual post” features an interview with Jeannedellalune Prudhomme, a former print journalist and an expert in supporting virtual communities in Second Life.
Washington, DC (February 15, 2008)—Mental health experts from the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare (National Council) are available to comment on yesterday’s shootings at Northern Illinois University.
National Council experts can answers questions about the tragedy such as:
What kind of mental health issues may people who commit these kinds of heinous crimes be suffering from?
Are there warning signs to look for in people with mental illness?
Who can community members who may be struggling in the aftermath of
the tragedy turn to for help?
What kind of mental health counseling for students and community members may be needed?
What sort of long-term challenges may students and community members face in the weeks, months and years after this tragedy?
Good to Great: Lessons for the Nonprofit World
General Session, May 2, 8:30 am
Jim Collins has trained senior executives at more than 100 top corporations. And now, he’s leading our one-of-a-kind session, generally reserved for Fortune 100 companies and rarely presented for the public sector.
Collins will explain how even the dowdiest of organizations can make the leap to outperform market leaders, only at the 38th National Council Conference
The National Council wants to be part of the national debate on healthcare. The 2008 presidential election is the perfect opportunity to get involved on the national, state and local levels, to send a message that mental health and addiction recovery are integral to the health of all Americans. This is one of many campaign updates that will let you know what the National Council and its members are doing to influence the candidates’ messages and what you can do to have a say.
It is the National Council’s public policy successes of which we are most proud. For an association with limited resources, our accomplishments are monumental, particularly within the context of the millions and millions of dollars spent by groups lobbying the Hill.
When I joined the National Council three years ago we committed to becoming a stronger voice on behalf of our member organizations and the adults and children they serve—and we have made considerable progress. The introduction of S.2182, the “Community Mental Health Services Improvement Act” by Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) in the United States Senate is an important milestone in National Council history and in behavioral health.
Don’t miss this unique opportunity to discover the secrets of enduring companies: how they grow, how they attain superior performance, and how they move from good to great. Hear Jim Collins in Boston this May 1 at the National Council’s annual conference.
Jim Collins in Aspen, CO, talking about his book, Good to Great, with T.V. host Charlie Rose. The full 58 minute interview.
We need to seize the 2008 Presidential election as an opportunity to move mental health and freedom from addictions to the forefront of the national healthcare agenda. And we must all commit to addressing the premature death of people with serious mental illnesses. Our 2008 mantra is–healthy minds and healthy bodies. See our Joint Statement of Medicaid Reform Principles
On December 29, 2007 President Bush signed legislation containing a six-month moratorium on rule making related to the Medicaid Rehabilitation and School-Based Services regulations. The National Council has been working for two years to minimize the impact of proposed changes to this important Medicaid program.
As 2007 came to a close we thought it was important to review the year’s accomplishments. Highlights of our accomplishments are now posted at on our website, there is much to be proud of and I encourage you to go and view the list.
We need to know how to speak military lingo and bureaucracy to be effective in outreach and in treatment
Family members are not currently engaged by the DoD or VA and should be
Service people are not going to walk into a behavioral center - behavioral health care needs to be better integrated with general check ups
Don’t throw out “PTSD” in outreach efforts b/c of stigma and consequences to their careers, couch this in terms of recovery from trauma and re-adjustment
Peer support is valuable “it takes a vet to know a vet”
Partner with PC facilities to screen - PTSD can take 3-6 months or a year to manifest
No? Is that why mental health is not usually discussed in movies and TV? Is it why mental health is such a difficult subject for people to talk about?
Popular culture has an opportunity to help reduce stigma, help people understand mental health and, most importantly, stop being afraid of those who have mental health illnesses.
All other disability groups don’t use the term stigma; they use the powerful, commonly understood terms of prejudice and discrimination. Stigma is a weak and esoteric term. Our use of “stigma” diminishes the rights of people with mental illness to be treated equally and fairly by removing it from the realm of the fundamental legal and civil rights we all have as citizens. Conversely, use of the terms prejudice and discrimination elevate their concern for fair treatment by others to the same status all others enjoy in our society.
Susan Abbott
Senior Vice President
Psychiatric Rehabilitation Division
Vinfen
It’s critically important that behavioral health providers of any significant size develop a strong business acumen and operations capacity in conjunction with IT leadership or a consultant who can articulate a business and data architecture.
In many respects, these pieces then allow the organization to begin strategic planning where their operational and clinical needs and goals are concerned. That startegic plan can then serve the purpose of defining operational and clinical requirements that truly reflect the strenghts of the organization.
Mapping business and clinical functions in workflow diagrams - probably outsourced to a pro - serves to inform the provider and their short list of potential vendors as to what is required from any applications/software to meet the unique needs of the provider organization.
Unfortunately, what often happens is that a software vendor is identified and everyone tries to figure out what they’ll need to adjust in order to suit that vendor and their application. That approach is a recipe for what amounts to near 50% failure rate in the adoption of EHR. Think of it in terms of client-centered Tx and stages of change. A Tx plan that is unique to the individual and their specific needs is always better than expecting the client to conform to an off-the-shelf solution.
