By Nancy Temple and Pamela Martineau
As a society, we have a long way to go in reducing the stigma surrounding mental illness and filling the huge gaps in services for treating mental health issues. But this May — during National Mental Health Month — it’s important to measure our progress, along with our needs.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and its Yolo chapter work diligently to keep this issue in the forefront of the public eye, advocating for mental health parity and working to provide support for mental health consumers and their families. The heartbreaking challenges are real — yet so are the successes.
Only a generation ago, poor parenting was widely viewed as one of the causes of mental disorders. Now, through huge advances in neuroscience, we better understand that the brain functioning of neuro-atypical people is a primary influence in a vast array of mental disorders. Science is helping us to remove the long-accepted blame and shame from these disorders.
In California, the Mental Health Services Act and its ongoing funding — championed by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg — was passed by voters nearly a decade ago. MHSA has funded anti-stigma campaigns, first-responder training programs, housing programs and other services.
In Yolo and throughout the state, MHSA funds are funding Crisis Intervention Team training programs for police officers and other public safety personnel. The programs train responders on ways to more effectively deal with individuals experiencing a mental health crisis, teaching them how to recognize psychotic, suicidal or post-traumatic stress disorder episodes and schooling attendees in best techniques for de-escalation and, in some cases, use of appropriate limited force.
The progress in mental health services and understanding is real, but so is the ongoing need. Locally, NAMI-Yolo would like to see the following issues addressed:

* The city of Davis is a stand-out in the region for its broad participation in CIT training, with about 50 percent of its 56 sworn officers (as of January) having gone through the program. Other nearby cities are catching up. NAMI-Yolo urges the line staff at the Yolo County Jail and Yolo County sheriff’s deputies to embrace similar CIT training participation levels, too.

Unfortunately, many of our mentally ill community members end up in jail due to issues related to homelessness, substance abuse and other problems. NAMI-Yolo would like the unique issues of those with mental illness to be familiar to the staff at the jail. Some sheriff’s deputies will attend a May 12-15 CIT training. We applaud this focus and would like to see it continue.
* NAMI- Yolo urges Yolo officials to adopt more swift and focused disbursement of MHSA funds to address the severe lack of housing in the county for those with mental illness.

Of particular concern is the Yolo County Board of Supervisors’ proposal to spend $3 million in MHSA housing funds allocated seven years ago on a housing project proposed at the site of the former Yolo General Hospital in Woodland. Only 15 units of the 75-unit planned project will go to those with mental illness. The project is years away from completion, yet we need units now.

Yolo County is even intending to use the funds for the planning stage of the overall project, which seems a dilution of the intent of the MHSA funds.

* Woodland Memorial Hospital — the only hospital in the county with psychiatric beds — provides psychiatric beds for people throughout Northern California. Seven Northern California counties hold contracts for beds there, yet Yolo County does not. Consequently, there often are no psychiatric beds available to Yolo County residents in crisis. An explanation as to why Yolo does not contract for beds would help in understanding this situation.
NAMI-Yolo works hard to advocate for better mental health services and awareness. We ask Yolo community members to join our efforts. Ways to participate include joining NAMI, attending our annual fundraising dinner or our monthly speaker potlucks, participating in the NAMI Walks fundraiser (this Saturday), joining one of our support groups or writing your elected official on an issue raised above.

We have made a difference already, but we have so much more work to do. For more information on NAMI-Yolo, visit www.namiyolo.org.

— Nancy Temple is president of NAMI-Yolo and Pamela Martineau is a member of the NAMI-Yolo board of directors.

Comments

comments