Inadequacies of mental health services partly stem from the chaotic system that the United States has evolved
Inadequacies of mental health services partly stem from the chaotic system that the United States has evolved
“Inadequacies of mental health services partly stem from the chaotic system that the United States has evolved. State Medicaid budgets fund more than half of the treatment for persons with serious mental illness, but these resources are grossly inadequate. The federal government bans the use of Medicaid funds for mental health institutions, leading to a severe shortage of beds for those who need institutionalized services to diagnose and stabilize their conditions. In many cases, local police dump persons with psychotic conditions in emergency rooms, shelters, and jails” (Jannson, Chap 12.).
In order to truly fix our broken approach to mental illness, there needs to be a change in attitude: one that goes from seeing people as inherently dangerous to treating them as human beings in need of help.
Recent years have seen a spate of police killings of people with mental illness, but also a renewed focus on law enforcement’s role in responding to mental-health crises. Attention has been heightened in the wake of recent episodes of police violence, including the death of Daniel Prude in March 2020, when officers were called to help him while he was in a psychotic state.
Police departments around the country have adopted training programs to teach officers how to respond to people in psychiatric distress. The most common model, the Crisis Intervention Team program, is being used in more than 2,500 communities nationwide—though there’s little empirical evidence of its success, and it’s unclear whether a few hours of instruction can overcome entrenched use-of-force practices. And some jurisdictions have gone a step further, dispatching mental-health workers to respond to 911 calls. In St. Paul, Minnesota, for example, social workers accompany specially trained police officers on mental-health-related calls, assessing needs and directing people to resources like counseling or shelters. In Eugene, Oregon, unarmed outreach workers and medics respond to many mental-health emergencies instead of officers. And programs that offer alternatives to incarceration have been growing, too. In the more than 300 mental-health courts across the country, people who agree to certain conditions—usually treatment, including medication and regular check-ins with a judge—can avoid jail and prison time.
But America has gone without a real system of mental-health care for so long that mental illness is often seen as a permanent feature of the criminal-justice system. In many prisons and jails, the urgent question is not how to reduce this surging population but how to build larger and better psychiatric units and treatment facilities inside the walls.
Taken from: Roth, A. (2021). The Turth about Deinstitutionalization. The Atlantic. May, 25.
1. What is the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Act of 2008?
2. How does it assist those with mental health? Has it been successful
3. The desire to assist those with mental health has led to the closing of Psychiatric Hospitals and an increased population of mentally ill persons in the criminal justice system. Discuss how the policies of the early 2000s have affected the mental health population 20 years later.
4. From a social work perspective, In 2023 which would be more effective, re-opening Psychiatric Institutions or Increasing Psychiatric Care in Prisons. Why?
Requirements: 500 words
Social Work
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