Monday, September 27, 2004

Evidence-Based Practices: Shaping Mental Health Services Toward Recovery
Cecile Douglas of SAMHSA wrote to call our attention to these "tool kits" - " The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and its Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) are pleased to introduce six Evidence-Based Practice Implementation Resource Kits to encourage the use of evidence-based practices in mental health. The Kits were developed as one of several SAMHSA/CMHS activities critical to its science-to-services strategy. We expect to identify additional practices for future Kits."  
  

Risk & Protective Factors for Substance Use Among American Indian or Alaska Native Youths
A new SAMHSA report, available from this page in both HTML and Acrobat formats - "SAMHSA's National Survey on Drug Use and Health combined data from 2002 and 2003 to examine three categories of risk factors for substance use (individual/peers, family, and school). These risk factors were compared between American Indian or Alaska Native youth and other racial and ethnic groups. These estimates are based on 46,310 respondents aged 12 to 17, representing a national population of 25 million youth. Nationally, there are an estimated 183,000 American Indian or Alaska Native youths aged 12 to 17. American Indian or Alaska Native youths were more likely than other youths to perceive moderate to no risk associated with substance use, to perceive their parents as not strongly disapproving of their substance use, and to believe that all or most of the students in their school get drunk at least once a week."  
  

APA Testimony On Behalf of New Mexico’s Important Step Toward Comprehensive Mental Health Care
APA press release - "Russ Newman, the American Psychological Association’s (APA) executive director for professional practice, testified before New Mexico’s Psychologist Examiner’s Board in support of regulations that would implement the state’s new law granting prescriptive authority to psychologists. New Mexico was the first state to enact a law granting psychologists the right to prescribe. Seeing a psychiatrist in New Mexico can take up to six weeks and an hours long commute. HB 170 and the regulations to implement it will expand the pool of mental health care providers by providing additional training in medicine and pharmacology to psychologists who are already experienced clinicians with doctoral level training..."  
  

New Black network to take on Mental Health Bill (UK)
Story at Black Information Link - "A new National Mental Health Network for Black Communities was launched this week to deal with the crisis in Black and Minority Ethnic mental health that has reached epidemic proportions The publication of the government’s draft mental health bill earlier this month has confirmed black professionals fears that there is no real commitment by the Department of Health to resolve the plethora of problems faced by African Caribbean’s trapped in the system. In an move to rally an offensive against the draft mental health bill, described as an ‘infringement on people’s human rights’ by Dr Michael Shooter, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. The Afiya Trust have launched a National Mental Health Network for Black Communities at their second annual Mental Health Conference in Manchester this week. "  
  

Southern Oregon group may restructure provision of mental health services
Story in The Oregonian - "The group that provides regional mental health coverage for six Southern Oregon counties is restructuring its administration after an investigation into a controversial nonprofit with which it had a $45,000 per month contract. The group, Jefferson Behavioral Health, provides services to Josephine, Jackson, Douglas, Klamath, Coos and Curry counties, and has an annual budget of $24 million..."  
  

Adopting Evidence-Based Treatments
Psychiatric Times article - "Evidence-based treatment has not always been a common model in the field of psychiatry. Its popularity has grown over the last five years, though, as the body of scientific evidence into mental health has grown as well."  
  

Addressing the Interface Between Pediatrics and Psychiatry
Psychiatric Times article - "...collaboration between pediatrics and psychiatry has been a topic of interest, discussion and annoyance for half a century, not only in the United States, but also in a host of different countries and cultures. Parallel systems of care for pediatric physical and mental health problems persist despite recommendations to better integrate existing research-based knowledge into routine clinical practice (e.g., U.S. Public Health Service, 2000). Yet despite several "botched beginnings" between the disciplines and the imperfect nature of existing knowledge and practice, there truly is reason for hope. Psychiatry and its affiliated disciplines now offer a better product that is increasingly relevant to the pediatricians and family physicians who are being called on to manage youths with mental disorders in traditional medical settings."  
  

Does Residential Treatment Impact Pharmacotherapy in Children and Adolescents?
Psychiatric Times article - "There appears to be a subgroup of children and adolescents who, despite repeated brief hospitalizations, do not improve, but along the way, these patients accumulate medications. During long-term residential treatment, however, these patients do improve and their medications are reduced."  
  

Reduction in mental health payments not without costs (Indiana)
Column in the Indianapolis Star by Ruth Holladay - "Marjorie Towell just got the news late Thursday -- Medicaid is cutting its reimbursement for patients in psychiatric facilities in Indiana. In the past, the federal, state-run program paid $408 a day to provide services. Beginning Nov. 1, she says, Medicaid will cut that figure to $309. 'That represents a huge cost reduction,' says Towell, executive director of the Marion County Mental Health Association and a veteran in the mental health wars now raging across the land. The state already has closed down so much and reduced care for people with mental health needs, she adds. Now, she is trying to calculate: How will this latest move affect the services still in play? It is a rhetorical question. She knows the answer, and so, very likely, do you...."  
  

Mental-health treatment gets its ACT together (Pennsylvania)
Delaware Daily Times story - "...The Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) service initiative was recently enacted through the Delaware County Office of Behavioral Health in Upper Darby and Connecticut-based Magellan Health Services, Inc. The initiative is based on nearly 30 years of research and takes a proactive approach to mental illness by visiting clients in their homes and communities instead of having them come out to traditional office settings. The program will be handled through the Philadelphia-based non-profit agency Horizon House Inc. and is intended keep the mentally ill from slipping through the cracks of traditional care systems that might land them in hospitals, jails, or even on the street."  
  

Mental health center's closing strands patients (Pennsylvania)
Story in Chambersburg Public Opinion on the closing of the Cumberland Valley Mental Health Center - "The board of directors decided Wednesday to close due to lack of revenue and frequent patient cancellations and no-shows, according to Executive Director Don Waters. ... The center provides outpatient therapy, medication management, a partial hospital program, life skills training for clients moving back into the community, and group settings. The center also offers a student assistance program, where staff members are in school working with students with emotional problems and drug/alcohol issues. Waters said his main concern in dealing with the impact of closure is with the center's crisis intervention."  
  

Mental health problems in assisted living residents higher than expected
Indiana University press release at EurekAlert - "The first large scale comparative study of the mental health of assisted living residents has found a higher rate than expected of a range of mental health problems in this rapidly growing population. The study which, appears in the October issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, reports that two thirds of 2100 assisted living residents studied exhibited mental health problem indicators. Half suffered from dementia and a quarter exhibited indicators of depression. More than half the assisted living residents studied took psychotropic medications including antipsychotics, antidepressants or sedatives. "  
  

Propositon 63: A tax for mental health (California)
Long Beach Press Telegram story - "As the pressures increase on California's mental health system, its workers and advocates say they are forced to do more with a supply of money that seems to shrink each year. 'The number of people who need services is growing. The cost of the services is growing. The revenue source is not growing,' said Patricia Ryan, executive director of the California Mental Health Directors Association. The solution? A measure on the November ballot that would dramatically bolster the flagging system by pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars and asking the wealthy to pick up the tab.