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Monday, January 13, 2014

Idaho Statesman Carried An Opinion Piece About Mental Illness Today

January 13, 2013 Idaho Statesman:
One year ago, in his State of the State address just weeks after the Sandy Hook shootings, Gov. Butch Otter proposed a $70 million mental health wing expansion to the Idaho State Penitentiary.
This year, the governor introduced a different approach: community-based 24-hour behavioral health crisis centers, one of which will be located here in Boise. Otter plans to pattern the crisis centers on existing models from other states in the belief that we will see “declines in use of local emergency rooms, hospital beds, and jail cells.”
What I like about this proposal is that it moves our focus from crisis-based, reactive care to a more proactive model that addresses the ongoing needs of individuals and families living with mental illness.
But what about those people who have serious mental illness but refuse to seek treatment because they lack awareness of their condition? How can a community crisis center help people who won’t ask for help but desperately need it?
I confess to surprise that the Statesman would publish something like this.  Perhaps they are losing their doctrinaire leftist position because of the new editorial page director?




Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/01/13/2970210/we-need-to-take-a-proactive-approach.html#storylink=cpy

4 comments:

  1. Sounds as if that author might be interested in a book on the subject...

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  2. She has a publisher for her book on the subject. My agent swore up and down that no publisher was interested, and I certainly couldn't find one, after hundreds of inquiries. There are days that I think that I am just wasting my time.

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  3. Very odd.

    Maybe the situation has changed since you self-published.

    The main reason I mentioned this is that the critique seen in that letters sounds as if it came out the chapter in My Brother Ron about setup and operation of Community Mental Health centers.

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  4. There are days that I wonder if it because I really don't need the money from a book, while these other people do. Even aside from the money (I wasn't ever expecting to get rich from it, that's for sure), I was hoping to have an influence.

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