A new era in mental-health care

Since Proposition 63 passed in 2004, Butte County has received about $32 million of the more than $7.4 billion raised by the Mental Health Services Act. That money has been used to form more than a dozen programs and physical sites, including wellness centers in Chico, Paradise and Oroville and the 6th Street Youth Drop-In Center.

“While some counties have had trouble receiving MHSA funds for numerous reasons, we’ve been able to acquire and implement every dollar,” said Betsy Gowan, program development manager and MHSA coordinator with the Butte County Department of Behavioral Health.

In addition to providing funds, the MHSA also helped usher in a new era in mental-health care. “Even before Proposition 63, there was a movement away from the traditional ‘talk-to-a-doctor-for-50 minutes, get-your-medications-refilled’ approach toward a more integrated, client-based model,” said Anne Robin, director of Behavioral Health. “There’s also more of a focus on promoting wellness, recovery and helping people become active, productive members of society.

“The MHSA really boosted that effort by spelling it out in the language that was used to write the bill.”

Specifically, the goals of the initiative were a transformation of each county’s mental-health system to become “consumer and family driven, recovery oriented, guided by best practices, and informed by outcomes.”

Additionally, the MHSA mandate “whatever it takes” has led to unprecedented partnerships between county and community agencies to ensure people have access to as many available services as possible. A number of MHSA-funded programs focus on cooperation between Behavioral Health and the local Department of Rehabilitation, whose main concern is helping the disabled obtain permanent employment.

Other local MHSA-funded programs are based on cooperative efforts among Behavioral Health and the Jesus Center, the Butte County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the Torres Community Shelter, Caminar and others.

The MHSA also requires that percentages of the funding go toward specific goals: community services and supports (CSS), prevention and early intervention, workforce education and training, housing, innovation, and capital facilities and technology.

Eighty percent of MHSA funding is marked for CSS, and Gowan and Robin said Butte County has been especially successful in this area. A Crisis Stabilization Unit, where consumers in crisis can stay for 23 hours as an alternative to hospitalization, served 828 people between June 2010 and June 2011; 75 percent of adults and 65 percent of youths treated at the CSU were discharged to their homes and families rather than hospitalized.

Other CSS programs include the North Valley Talk Line, a free, consumer- and peer-run telephone service offering non-emergency support and referrals, and numerous youth-intensive programs.

Local MHSA programs are currently undergoing a review and comment period, including stakeholder meetings. A public hearing ended this week. Gowan said that Behavioral Health’s objective at the moment is to stay the course, allowing new programs to develop and improve while more quantitative data are collected to evaluate successes and failures.

As issues of homelessness and mental illness are so entwined, many MHSA programs attempt to address the needs of the homeless population and help people into permanent housing. SEARCH (Support, Employment, Assistance, Recovery, and Consumer Housing ) is an MHSA-funded program Gowan said has been successful in providing increased access to employment opportunities, medication management and housing.

A newer Peer Partner Program is a collaborative effort among Behavioral Health, the Torres Shelter and Catholic Family Services. Through it, people who have dealt with mental illness, addiction and homelessness themselves visit the shelter to help its guests obtain needed services.

Robin said the department has seen a rise in people experiencing first-time psychiatric breaks as a result of the economy, and that she sees a correlation between this and a rise in homelessness in Butte County and beyond.

“There’s also a section of the community that, as mental-health professionals, we only have so much power to help,” she said. “It takes a lot of trust before we’re able to help some people, and it’s just impossible to move forward when you can’t establish that.

“Sometimes ‘whatever it takes’ just isn’t enough.”