Talking points re: suggested language for Greenwood-Kaptur bill

The proposed regional centers would foster the development of consumer-run services, which play a vital role in the continuum of care. These services fill the gaps in the traditional mental health system. Their hours of operation include hours when traditional services are closed. For example, consumer-run drop-in centers, which provide peer support and assistance with problems without professionals in attendance, are open not only during the day but in the evening and on weekends and holidays, when professional services are usually closed and when such support is most needed to counteract the isolation and loneliness people with mental illnesses often experience. Consumer-run services also go into places often unserved by traditional programs, such as into the streets; they make extensive use of volunteers and usually operate on a shoestring, making them extremely cost-effective; and they require little if any red tape, which often keeps people away from traditional mental health services.

The importance of supporting and promoting such services is recognized by no less an authority than the Surgeon General, whose recently published report (“Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General”) hails the contributions of consumer-run services. The Report notes that consumer organizations “have invigorated the fields of research as well as treatment and service delivery design” (p. 14). Later, the Report explains: “The rationale for consumer roles in service delivery is that consumer staff, clients, and the mental health system can benefit. Consumer staff are thought to gain meaningful work, to serve as role models for clients, and to enhance the sensitivity of the service system to the needs of people with mental disorders. Clients are thought to gain from being served by staff who are more empathic and more capable of engaging them in mental health services (Mowbray et al., 1996) (p. 290).

The proposed regional centers would provide much-needed support to consumer-run services. In “Consumer/Survivor-Operated Self-Help Programs: A Technical Report: A Retrospective Review of the Mental Health Consumer/Survivor Movement and 13 Federally Funded Consumer/Survivor-Operated Service Programs in the 1980s” (recently published by the Center for Mental Health Services of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration as Volume I in its Consumer Information Series <http://www.mentalhealth.org/consumersurvivor/selfhelp/programs.htm>), the authors noted that “[a]pproximately 70% of the [consumer-run program] sites indicated that more training and technical assistance would have contributed to increased successes. . . . Participants revealed that they felt hindered by this lack of knowledge and that coordinated, comprehensive approaches to meeting technical assistance needs would have been of benefit” (p. 111).

Why are more technical assistance centers needed, beyond the three that already exist? Even though there are already three national technical assistance centers, most mental health policy is decided on the state level. In addition, each of the regions of the country has its own unique needs. While the three national consumer technical assistance centers (all of which are on the East Coast) are, because of their very nature, generalists, regional centers could specialize in the issues affecting their respective regions. It would therefore be better to have 10 regional centers, since they could become more closely involved in regional and statewide issues. (Think globally, act locally.)

In addition, the existence of additional technical assistance centers would allow each center to develop a subject specialty on an in-depth basis. These specialties might include consumer-run businesses, cultural competence, forensic issues, stigma, research, financing, etc. In other words, the regional centers would each serve a specific region, but each would also have an area of expertise on which it could provide technical assistance nationally.

Also, as the movement has grown more sophisticated, it would be more effective to be able to develop a more collaborative relationship with those who are receiving technical assistance, so that there could be more of an exchange. It is more difficult for the national consumer technical assistance centers to develop this kind of relationship.