News Apr 22, 2010 at 4:00 am

How to Fix Our System

Comments

1
I like this idea. I also think we could turn 100 or so of our police into 'mental police', like Chiers with more teeth and better funding. They would not carry guns, but would have all the less lethal options. They would be trained in deescalating conflict and would work with the drunks, druggies, and homeless types once they break a law. They could help steer people to the newly funded treatment options available with your kicker. The cops complain that they are expected to do do this stuff anyway, why not recognize it is their job, then train and equip they accordingly. It would not have saved Campbell since he reportedly had a gun, guns get the regular cops, but Collins would maybe still be alive. Just an idea, and I can think of a couple good arguments against it, but I still kinda like it.

You have my vote (again) next time you run for anything, keep up the good work.
2
Great suggestion, thought police. Mr Novick, whom I respect greatly, addresses the how, how to fund mental health, but not the what, what to fund that works. Though community mental health programs could always use more money, that doesn't cover all the problems the public wants addressed, visible problems, crises and tragedies. It's time for some deep benchmarking, looking at other cities, even other countries, to understand what works.

PS, great suggestion on corrections. And I'm sure some NOPO homeowners are happy that their homes are worth 3x or more the assessed value too, and are taxed 1/3.
3
"Third, I think the county would love to adopt a beer and wine tax, use the money to fund alcohol and drug treatment" - *cough* tax marijuana, heroin, and meth *cough* use the proceeds to pay for addiction treatment *cough* it's a system proven to work *cough*

Is there a way I can blame this on Sam Adams?
4
Hi Steve: Some of your suggestions are very good, and I've made the same suggestions.

But, as usual, I'm the guy who's actually worked at "ground zero" with these issues for most of my life, which is why I keep running for office, being really fed up with these decisions being made by lawyers, not people who actually have to do the work (no offense to lawyers, but would you ask a "shrink" to file a lawsuit?).

People without housing have mental health issues. I once worked in a federally funded national mental health system, right here in the United States. It was one of the first things Reagan erased in 1981, and no one even noticed. All of our clients/patients who got an SSI check (which paid for their housing/food) got cut off. The money for their weekly anti-psychotic injection also got cut off, and suddenly we got homeless people.

Now Nick Fish (who is a friend) is touting a "mental health levy". We need housing, and the current way of providing it is not working fast enough, so logic suggests we need to find different ways to create it, but so far the status quo seems stuck with building glittering palaces in the sky that cost about $125,000 each to build. There's going to be a riot over this stuff because between the police and the ongoing broken promises over housing, a growing group of people have lost hope and are tired of waiting.

Next, actual mental health treatment, is not treatment because of "Evidence Based Practice", and experiment passed by the state about a decade ago.

I've done mental health and addictions treatment work for almost 30 years. The principle factor in treatment success is the relationship between the treatment professional and the clients. That relationship is now eviscerated because the counselor is forced to follow a script that meets the state/county requirements of "Evidence Based Practice."

In other words, we pay a lot of money for someone to sit with a group of people and review a workbook or a sheet of questions/topics, instead of actually work with the core issues of their illness.

At one large treatment agency, which gets millions from the state to serve alcohol & drug offenders, the concept of abstinence while in treatment is not even enforced. It's called "Harm Reduction" and the goal is to get the addict to "just use less" which is contrary to every principle of addiction treatment for the last 60+ years.

But we are paying for this, to the tune of about $50 per "group" per client.

I'd love to work with you, or anyone else on this issue. We don't have tax dollars to waste on this anymore.

And lastly, I have a Masters, two clinical licenses (the from CA had a higher first time failure rate than the Bar exam), and 30 years professional experience (9 in management). So please, show some respect, it's appreciated.

Regards, Ed Garren, MA, LMFT

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