Sunday, December 29, 2013

SAMHSA Webinar on AOT

If you missed it earlier this month, this Webinar on AOT is a MUST WATCH!

SAMHSA Starts a Conversation on AOT -- published by the

Treatment Advocacy Center

Print
(Dec. 3, 2013) The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a federal agency charged with improving the quality and availability of mental health services, presented a highly illuminating public seminar yesterday on assisted outpatient treatment (AOT). Held at SAMHSA headquarters in Rockville, Maryland with live webcasting to hundreds of registrants, the event included Treatment Advocacy Center Policy Director Brian Stettin as a panelist.
pam_hydeIn the first half of the program, Duke University professors Marvin Swartz and Jeffrey Swanson gave highlights of the many AOT studies that they have conducted in New York and North Carolina, dating back to the late 1990’s. Their findings made a persuasive case that if properly implemented, AOT is a cost effective means to improve outcomes for people with severe mental illness who struggle with treatment adherence.
In the panel presentation that followed, Brian cautioned against misinterpreting Drs. Swartz and Swanson’s findings to mean that AOT was only useful in states with ideal availability of community-based services. The panel also featured Dr. Stephanie Le Melle, Co-Director of Public Psychiatry Education at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, who spoke of the positive results she has had in treating patients under AOT, and Chaku Mathai, a peer advocate and longtime AOT opponent.
Archived video of the four-hour seminar can be viewed here: http://services.choruscall.com/links/samhsa131202.html
While we have certainly taken our shots at SAMHSA over the years for inattention to the needs of people with severe mental illness, today we offer only praise for facilitating this critical discussion. In her remarks, SAMHSA Administrator Pamela Hyde promised that yesterday was “only the beginning” of the agency’s plans to keep AOT in the spotlight. Count us in for whatever’s next.
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Saturday, December 28, 2013

Time to talk - a parent's perspective on children's mental illness: Liza Long

Is there a better solution for homeless individuals like Henry Earl? Arrested 1500 times!


Could a separate outpatient law called, “Assisted Outpatient Treatment”, (AOT) help this man and others like him? 

Which is more humane and inexpensive – spending longer sentences in jail, (60-90 days at a time) or requiring Earl to live in a shelter or supportive living environment, receiving proper medications, (instead of self-medicating) a few nutritious meals coupled with needed resources, other than AA classes in jail?

Alcoholism is a disease the last time I checked. People say until you want to quit, nothing will change for people like Earl and they will drink until they die. But perhaps Earl is too sick to understand he needs to quit?

Dec 25, 2013 11:59 AM by Josh Kegley
Dec 25, 2013 11:59 AM by Josh Kegley
See video here: 

With that said, please notice the comment under the article by a woman named Alice Bradford who compares Earl to a dog!

When did when we lose our compassion for the most vulnerable citizens in the US, who are forced to survive on the streets and would rather be locked up in jail? 

When President Kennedy passed the Community Mental Health Act,

50 years ago, to move patients with mental illness from hospitals into the communities, did he imagine this would be how many of these patients would survive? 

How is " free choice" working for Earl's civil liberties? 

And how is this failed system saving money? 

The entire miserable account is the definition of insanity!

Read more here about a 64-year old Lexington man who has cost Lexington taxpayers more than $50,000 in the last two years. And the cost stretches back for decades - since 1992; Earl has been arrested on average 50 times per year - or about once a week. This is not an isolated case, just one that has picked up the attention of national media sources. 
LEX 18 NEWS INVESTIGATES http://www.lex18.com/news/lex-18-investigates-judges-taking-a-harder-line-on-henry-earl/
One national article of many was recently published by CNN. There must be a better solution folks!
Most-arrested man to face judge as friends hope for 'Christmas miracle'
By Eliott C. McLaughlin, CNN
updated 5:42 PM EST, Wed December 4, 2013

Thursday, December 26, 2013

WSJ EDITORS PRAISE THE HELPING FAMILIES IN MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS ACT




From the editors of the Wall Street Journal:

A MENTAL-HEALTH OVERHAUL

A Congressman produces a set of good ideas for a difficult problem.


A year has passed since the Newtown massacre, and Americans this month marked the somber moment. The most fitting tribute Congress could pay the 26 victims would be to return in January to take up Pennsylvania Representative Tim Murphy's thoughtful overhaul of federal mental-health policies.

Severe mental illness is the common link among the recent mass shootings, and for decades the political class has ignored the systemic dysfunction in a mental-health system that fails the sickest. Getting to the root of this problem is hard, which is why Congress defaults either to spending more money or brawling over gun control.

The Murphy bill also uses grant money to push states to modernize their mental-illness laws. Some 23 states still allow for involuntary commitment only if a mentally ill person is an imminent danger to himself or others. This standard is nearly impossible to meet, and even psychotics are often able to present a brief façade of normality. Many are unaware they're even ill and won't voluntarily get help.
Community mental-health centers would only receive grants if their state's commitment laws include a "need for treatment" standard, which gives families and physicians greater ability to get help for the mentally ill. Grants would also flow only to centers in the 44 states that have assisted-outpatient treatment laws, in which courts can require the mentally ill, as a condition of remaining in a community, to receive treatment. New York's Kendra's Law has been a model for how these outpatient treatment laws can help the most vulnerable and save lives.
The bill includes other pressing reforms, like removing the federal bias against hospital psychiatric care. Medicaid currently won't reimburse for psychiatric care in any hospital that has more than 16 psychiatric beds. This restriction has led to the dismantling of psychiatric hospitals, releasing the mentally ill to commit crimes and receive subpar treatment in jails. Seventy years ago the U.S. had 600,000 inpatient psychiatric beds for a country half its current population. Today it has 40,000.

Read more on Rep. Murphy's home page here: http://murphy.house.gov/latest-news/wsj-editors-praise-the-helping-families-in-mental-health-crisis-act/

Thursday, December 12, 2013

HR 3717 introduced by Rep Murphy: Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act


Rep. Tim Murphy, PhD, Chairman of Oversight and Investigations

 "AND WHERE THERE IS NO HELP, THERE IS NO HOPE." 

More than 11 million Americans have severe schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and major depression yet millions are going without treatment and families struggle to find care for loved ones.

The federal government’s approach to mental health has been a chaotic patchwork of antiquated programs and ineffective policies across numerous agencies. Sadly, patients end up in the criminal justice system or on the streets because services are not available.  

This Act fixes the nation’s broken mental health system by focusing programs and resources on psychiatric care for patients and their families most in need of services.

1.) Empowers Parents and Caregivers

2.) Breaks down barriers preventing doctors and mental health professionals from talking to parents about mentally ill loved ones who are in an acute mental health crisis, regarding HIPPA laws

3.) Fixes Shortage of Inpatient Beds

4.) Increases access to acute care psychiatric beds for the most critical patients

5.) Alternatives to institutionalization

6.) Provides alternatives to inpatient care through court-ordered ‘Assisted Outpatient Treatment’ or AOT — which reduces rates of imprisonment, homelessness, substance abuse, and costly ER visits for the chronically mentally ill

7.) Reaches undeserved and rural populations

8.) Advances tele-psychiatry to link pediatricians and primary care doctors with psychiatrists and psychologists in areas where patients don’t have access to mental health professionals

9.) Creates Assistant Secretary for Mental Health (HHS) to coordinate federal government programs and oversee evidence-based models of care developed by the National Institute of Mental Health at Community Mental Health Centers. Ensures federal programs are optimized for mental health and patient care rather than bureaucracy

10.) Stabilizing patients beyond the ER

11.) Protects classes of drugs so physicians can prescribe the appropriate medications for mental health patients enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid (similar to epilepsy, cancer)

12.) Advances critical medical research

13.) Authorizes the BRAIN research initiative at the Nat’l Institute of Mental Health.

14.) Promotes High Quality Behavioral Health Clinics

15.) Improves quality and expands access to integrated medical and mental healthcare at community mental health providers

16.) Demands Department Of Justice Reforms

17.) Reauthorizes mental health courts so patients are treated in the healthcare system and not warehoused in the criminal justice system and more

 **********

View Rep. Murphy's 5 minute speech on Floor of House announcing the "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act". http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/4477276

The complete text of The Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act can be viewed here.
A summary of the legislation is provided here.

Here's what's in Rep. Tim Murphy's Mental Illness Bill (12/12/13)



YOU CAN HELP BY:


Calling your Representative and ask him/her to co-sponsor and support the "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act" (HR 3717) sponsored by Rep. Tim Murphy. 

The fastest way to find your Rep phone number is to enter your zip code at  http://www.opencongress.org/people/zipcodelookup -- or see the list below. 

District 1 Whitfield, Ed, R, 202-225-3115, Energy and Commerce 202-225-3115

District 2 Guthrie, S. Brett, R, 202-225-3501, Education and the Workforce
202-225-3501

District 3 Yarmuth, John A., D, 202-225-5401, Energy and Commerce 202-225-5401

District 4 Massie, Thomas. R, 202-225-3465, Oversight and Government Reform Science, Space, and Technology Transportation and Infrastructure

District 5 Rogers, Harold, R, 202-225-4601, Appropriations, Chairman 202-225-4601

District 6 Barr/Lexington, Andy, R, 202-225-4706, Financial Service

 **********

Letters of support from the following organizations:


AOT Bill lets courts order outpatient care for mentally ill in Ohio

read article here:
Bill lets courts order outpatient care for mentally ill\

Russell, (director of NAMI Ohio) said the bill, which NAMI supports, would allow judges to place people in the “ least-restrictive environment,” outpatient treatment. Commitment to a state hospital is far more restrictive and more expensive to taxpayers, he said.

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Chairman Murphy to Announce Major Mental Health Reforms



Brad Grantz | Congressman Tim Murphy (PA-18) | Legislative Director


Tim Murphy
U.S. Congressman for the 18th District of Pennsylvania


***MEDIA EVENT ***
**THURSDAY**

Chairman Murphy to Announce Major Mental Health Reforms
  Legislation will help families and patients in mental health crisis get access to life-saving care 

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Contact: Dain Pascocello, 202.225.2301

(Washington, DC) – Congressman Tim Murphy (PA-18) is holding a press conference on Thursday, December 12th at 9:45 a.m. in Studio A of the House Radio-Television Correspondents' Gallery in the House Visitors Center, room 114 to introduce a legislative package of major mental health reforms.  

This highly anticipated legislation comes after a year-long investigation led by House Energy &Commerce Oversight Subcommittee Chairman Murphy into the nation’s broken mental health system. Through his O & I Subcommittee meetings, forums, and hearings, Dr. Murphy’s legislative initiative will address: increasing inpatient and outpatient treatment options; clarifying standards used to commit an individual to medical care; updating legal framework to help families and physicians communicate during crisis; moving towards data-driven, evidence-based models of care so treatment is accessed not through the criminal justice system but the healthcare system.

WHAT: Mental health legislation press event

WHO: Congressman Tim Murphy (PA-18), Chairman of Energy & Commerce Oversight & Investigations

WHEN: Thursday, December 12, 2013
9:45-10:15AM

WHERE: House Radio-Television Correspondents’ Gallery, House Visitors Center
HVC-114, Studio A

CONTACT: Dain Pascocello, 202.225.2301
### 
In his sixth term representing Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district encompassing suburban Pittsburgh including parts of Allegheny, Washington, Westmoreland and Greene Counties, Rep. Tim Murphy also serves as a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy Reserve Medical Service Corps as a psychologist treating Wounded Warriors with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. Prior to serving in Congress, Dr. Murphy, author of “The Angry Child” and “Overcoming Passive-Aggression,” was a practicing psychologist specializing in child and family treatment.

Murphy Press | Congressman Tim Murphy (PA-18)
2332 Rayburn House Office Building | Washington, DC  20515
(202) 225-2301 | (202) 225-1844