Darrell Steinberg and the Campaign for Mental Health

Helping Children and Their Parents

Dozens of people come to my office every week to discuss issues of importance to them, their families, their organizations. Without a doubt, it is the parents of children with severe emotional disturbance, and the parents of adult children with mental illness, who are the most impassioned.

I’ve spoken with so many of these parents over the years, and it was, in large part, because of their stories that I became the lead sponsor on this initiative.

Despite the differences in specific facts, the stories of these parents are very similar: They knew early on that their children were different in some way, and at some point their children began failing in school as the level of impairment increased. The parents tried for years to get help for their children, and they couldn’t do it. Despite their efforts, their good intentions, and their love for their children, these parents could not successfully intervene early enough in the process to provide services and treatment for their children in order to prevent their children’s illnesses from causing significant levels of impairment in the children’s lives.

The parents, who were, unbeknownst to them, facing what we now know as “barriers to access,” feel exhausted, and they feel unsuccessful, and they feel guilty.

One of the main goals of the initiative is to make help available to parents who want it for their children.

I’ll comment in the future about these barriers to access to services. Meantime, you might check out the Surgeon General’s report on children’s mental health, calling it a public health crisis in this country, and also the Little Hoover Commission’s report with respect to the crisis in California. The more educated we become on this issues, the better we can work together.

Also, if you have a story involving your child and your attempts to get services for your child, please share it on our web site. Click here to go to our Share Your Story page. Sharing your story is an important way of contributing to our goal of raising awareness.

On a final note, if you haven't seen it already, check out Rex Babin's political cartoon that ran in today's Sacramento Bee.

5,000,000 Votes

We’re figuring, based on the anticipated turnout at the general election in November, that we are going to need 5,000,000 votes to get this initiative adopted by the voters.

That’s why I really need your help.

We already have 640,000 people who support the initiative - those are the people who signed the petition to get this initiative on the ballot. And we are getting a lot of activity on this website.

To reach 5,000,000 votes we have to start building our base of supporters now. Get started today. Use our Tell Your Friends page to spread the word about our campaign and website. Click here to get started.

Important April Event

There’s an important public event coming up that you might want to attend. In April I will be hosting a press event in the Capitol where we will be raising awareness about schizophrenia. An organization will be there with equipment to simulate schizophrenia so that people who do not have schizophrenia may experience what it is like to have a severe and disabling case of this mental illness. When the scheduling issues are worked out and the date is set, I'll post the information here on the blog.

We know that early diagnosis and treatment of this mental illness can prevent it from becoming severe and disabling. Early diagnosis and treatment can significantly reduce the suffering of people who have schizophrenia.

Estimates are that about half of the state’s mental health dollars are spent on treating schizophrenia, so early diagnosis and treatment would, in addition to reducing suffering, also result in substantial cost savings to the state.

Raising public awareness is an important goal of this event, and we know that awareness leads to knowledge, and knowledge leads to compassion. Members of the public are welcome to attend this event in the Capitol. If you are in the Sacramento area, I hope to see you there so that we can work together to support this important cause.

I’ll keep you informed of public events such as this as they are scheduled.

Media Event Coverage and Photos

Short post today. If you haven't already, take a minute to look through the coverage on the news and reports page and the photos from the March 19 event.

The Initiative Focuses on Successful Outcomes

I often have speaking engagements relating to the initiative, and one question that I frequently get is whether money raised by the law enacted by the initiative will fund a bureaucracy, and I imagine many of you have questions about that.

When I and the team of people working on the initiative drafted its provisions, we made certain that this wouldn’t happen.

When the initiative is adopted by the voters in November, the law it enacts will establish an oversight and accountability commission. Any organization receiving a grant or funding under the initiative will be required by law to provide information as to outcomes achieved and the number of persons served by the programs and services funded by revenues received pursuant to the initiative, and the oversight and accountability commission will be required by law to ensure that those outcome measures are provided.

Any organization that does not successfully achieve outcomes will not be funded in the next funding cycle. The initiative is designed to provide incentive to private nonprofit providers and to governmental providers to achieve efficiency and positive outcomes.

The text of the initiative is on the Web site, and I invite you all to read its provisions relating to oversight and accountability so that when you talk to your friends, and they ask you the question I hear so often, you’ll be prepared to answer it.

And I hope you do talk to your friends, because I need your help on this campaign. This initiative is about making sure that people who need mental health services have access to them, and let’s work together to see that it’s adopted by the voters in November. Click here to share our website with your friends.

Some history of the delivery of mental health services

I'm interested in the history of the delivery of mental health services in California, so I was happy that Muriel Karp came to see me today.

Ms. Karp started working for the State Department of Mental Health in 1956 as a psychiatric social worker. At that time, according to Ms. Karp, she and the others in her profession did the after care services for patients who were coming out of state hospitals.

Ms. Karp said the department had a complete network of psychiatric social workers throughout the state that covered every patient that was discharged, whether the patient was living in his or her own home or in a group home.

It was Ms. Karp’s and her colleagues’ job to hook up their patients with any resources they needed. They provided a complete blanket of services, including family counseling, helping with employment, connecting their patients with social agencies, and seeing that they got their physical needs met.

They also provided counseling to help families to accept the patient's illness, and they helped with post-hospital adjustment with the family.

These psychiatric social workers had no limitations on what services they provided. If the need was there, they met it, and the services were provided at the level of each patient's need. Basically they did whatever it took. It's called case management now, Ms. Karp said.

When she left the department in 1970, the depopulation of the hospitals had not started, but the process was in place. When she returned to the department in 1985, the state hospitals had been closed. The care of people who had resided in the state hospitals had been turned over to counties who had exceptional people working on the care of patients, but were underfunded.

A lot of people who had been patients were falling through the cracks. Ms. Karp is still very concerned about people with mental illness who are not getting services.

The AB 34 programs, and the programs we hope to provide under the initiative, look very much like the "blanket of services" that Ms. Karp described. If you have stories from the 1950's to the present, please comment. I would love to hear from you.

The AB 34 Programs

In my post yesterday, I mentioned the AB 34 programs, and many of you visiting the blog are already familiar with those programs.

For those of you who have provided or received services under those programs, or are connected with them in some other way, I wanted to give you the link so you can take a look at the State Department of Mental Health's publication regarding the successful outcomes of individuals as a result of these programs, and the savings to the state as a result of the programs. Click here.

For those of you who are just joining us in this effort, the AB 34 programs are programs in 34 counties that provide services to people who are homeless, or at risk of homelessness, and severely mentally ill. These programs are based on the first bill I authored when I was elected to the Assembly in 1998.

The AB 34 programs, thanks to the efforts of many people, including counties, mental health providers, and others, have been a proven success. The "whatever it takes" approach of services offered under these programs, such as mental health services and vocational rehabilitation services, have saved the state millions of dollars that would have otherwise been spent on hospitalizing and incarcerating people who are in the program.

Many of the people with severe mental illness who have benefited from the program's services are now living productive lives, and are doing so with dignity. Mildred Littlejohn is one of those people.

The AB 34 programs have received recognition for their success and effectiveness from the State Department of Mental Health, and were also recently recognized by the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health because of their success and effectiveness.

If we can help people who have hit bottom in our society because of mental illness, I know we can help those who are at risk, and that's why I'm here. But I need your help to make it work.

You can read more about the success of these AB 34 programs, and savings to the state as a result of these programs, on the California Department of Mental Health website. Click here.

Campaign Turns in Signatures with Media Event on Capitol Steps

This morning, we kicked off the Campaign for Mental Health.org on the West Steps of the State Capitol. Thanks to many of you, we collected 643,000 signatures for the initiative. That's 270,000 more than the number we will need to qualify this initiative for the ballot.

We had strong media attendance with lots of cameras. Check the website and this blog for pictures and news articles from the event.

There were dozens of initiative supporters at the event. Mildred Littlejohn gave a particularly moving testimonial about the help she received from AB 34. She talked about her many years of homelessness and how AB 34 "offered food, housing and mental health services" that helped her turn her life around.

This is why we are working so hard to pass this initiative. This measure will provide mental health services to people who need it most. It will give children, adults and families care and support and hope for the future.

Now it's time to begin the campaign, to tell the story of the state's broken promise, and the story of how programs like AB 34 really work. I invite you to help me in any way you can. Let's work as a team and get the word out.

This is a picture of Mildred speaking proudly at the podium. You can click on the picture for a larger image.