In my county office I often get mailed reports and studies. Most of them are of no value at all and quickly go in the recycle bin.
In November I got a report sent to me from Eli Lilly titled Navigating the Currents: A Guide to California’s Public Mental Health System. I read it a few weeks later. It is easily the best report that has come across my desk this year. Eli Lilly worked with the California Association of Local Mental Health Boards and Commissions to produce the report.
In 106 easy to read pages it covers the historical background of the issue in our state, describes the California system, the local/county system, and takes a look at some of the issues that must be addressed in the coming years.
If you are interested in county government or state government and want to know more about the mental health system this is the document you want to get. Andrew Bradley and Perry Communications Group at andrew@perrycom.com or Kit Wall at wall_kit@lilly.com are the contacts to get your copy.
Many of us want a smaller more economical government. I certainly do. That involves drawing a line between those that will receive taxpayer subsidized services and those that will not. Some elected officials don’t want to view it that way — but that is what we do. Some would simply eliminate these programs entirely. I am not one of those.
Although I do not have a great deal of experience with mental illness, I can see that it really is as big of an issue as any sort of true physical limitation. I see this in some of my military friends and I see it in some of the people we are incarcerating at a much greater expense than mental health care would be. At the same time I think some parts of these programs that are placed under the banner "mental health" are about the biggest wast of taxpayer dollars I could imagine.
I encourage any of your interested in the mental health issue to order a copy of the report and read it. It is well written, the layout is exceptional, and it frames a complicated issue in a way that makes it easy to understand.
Happy New Year.