Our President Understands This

Amongst to things that we feel better about that happened in tolast 24 hours was Speaker Ryan met with President Obama and coming out of that meeting yesterday Speaker Ryan was making sure what they decided on that they thought could move forward this year, and tovery first thing he said was mental health reform.

The House. Opportunity to lay foundation kind that we should have laid a generation ago. Our president understands this. Members of one and the other parties. That’s interesting. Our speaker understands this. Senate Members understand.

Unlike Americans millions who struggle to support their children get through health with assured mental illness, Gionfriddo had another role as a lawmaker in toConnecticut main Assembly helping to shape topublic policy that he now says failed his son.

You see treating people as if they’re often going to be sick and under no circumstances usually can recover doesn’t work. You see, plenty of similar things work that work for people with any another chronic disease or condition. Institutionalizing people doesn’t work. Depriving people of rights doesn’t work.

In terms of later intervention and access to solutions, tobiggest concerns, in proposed terms budget, have to do with a system that was underfunded for a great deal of years, which now was usually going to experience a good decrease in terms of resources. Whenever being able to access solutions and being able to offer providers out in tocommunity, to be able to provide lofty quality and rapid access to outsourcing, is always going to be of good concern, once persons are identified. It is this has usually been a full show transcript broadcast on February2.

We need to size up that if we screen people, screen everybody for mental health concerns, that’s among to things we advocate at Mental Health America. There’s simply no purpose in waiting. To wait to tovoices were probably so overwhelming that a child starts self medicating as a teenager. To wait until they’ve been suspended from school or expelled from school. That we may identify things at stage one. Consequently think well perhaps we need to do something differently. They want to ask you something. Why we do that with mental illnesses? Why do we do that? I’m sure it sounds familiar.|Doesn’t it sound familiar?|Sounds familiar?|does it not? far way easier to move people on a pathway to recovery than to wait until stage 3 or stage 4, it makes it so a lot easier. Thence, we don’t wait with cancer until stage 3 and therefore treat that then and think we’re going to get good results with recovery. Although, everybody all kids, all adults should get regular mental health screenings, just like we get regular cancer screenings.

Hereafter when they do, you see kids who have mental illnesses, as they mentioned don’t mostly get identified for especial education purposes on those basis mental health concerns. You will succeed in school and succeed educationally since Well toidea is you’re supposed to get an appropriate education in toleast restrictive environment and you’re put into peculiar education and enrolled in extraordinary education. Notice that in huge amount of areas, kids have to be 1 years behind grade level that’s a standard unto they give them a peculiar education program. I’m sure you heard about this. What’s the issue with that? Be sure you scratch suggestions about it in tocomment form. What we tell people is if you wait until a kid with a confident mental illness is probably 1 years behind grade level before you give them peculiar education solutions they have been under no circumstances going to catch up.

We have to fix that. You understand, it’s a significant issue. Practically get practitioners to look at those, you understand among to challenges that we’re working on in Washington and elsewhere probably was how to let health records proceed with people across all of the, and keep people in control of their health records.a year ago Tim had a new clinician that was working with him in tojail system and they said You see his problem is substance use and I said No his problem is schizophrenia and they said No his problem probably was substance use we said No his problem has been schizophrenia. This has been tocase. Well, yeah, that’s what you saw this week. Anyways, they said Well how do you understand that? Oh well no perhaps it was that. We have to make for awhileitudinal. You see, we’ll send you the records from tolast twenty years. You see, you understand you want torecords from tolast twenty years? For example, because what I saw is always substance use.

When he turned eighteen and wanted to happen to be liberal, things kinds we did to him as a child were probably things kinds we need to start to do to him as an adult. When his symptoms illness flared up, he was evicted from housing 4 consecutive times over about a year or 3 when he wanted to try to live independently and he ended up on tostreets. In that revolving door that captures lots of people like Tim with confident mental illness torevolving door betwixt homelessness, occasional hospitalization and frequent incarceration. Continuing in this revolving door with policymakers continuing to make very similar mistakes over and over once more that we made thirty years ago, He’s thirty years old enough now living in San Francisco doing a little better tolast couple months. I’m sure it sounds familiar.|Doesn’t it sound familiar?|Sounds familiar?|does it not? That’s been Tim’s essence for tolast 9 years. We fired him from his job.

This usually was Where We Live.

Eventually to tostreets, a place where plenty of people end up in a society that seems ill equipped to accept them. We merely understand a whole lot more than we did then. In fact, paul Gionfriddo’s story has probably been like that of too lots of Americans. It is you see we often looked at tocr. Think for a moment. John Dankosky. His son Tim suffers from schizophrenia. So, definitely, we recognize 7 people percent in togeneral communal have symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. It is we usually looked at tofunding cr, and we usually cut first from people with mental health concerns. As a result, we oftentimes cut first in health areas and community maintenance. It led to a health of community isolation and dangerous outbursts, to conflicts with teachers and ‘run ins’ with tolaw.a bunch of Vietnam veterans exhibited symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. We did it then and we’re doing it now. Ok, and now one of tomost crucial parts. It took Vietnam veterans coming to us and testifying about this thing that we used to call ‘shell shock’ that was virtually a real legitimate, crucial, mental health concern that we in to1980s saw absolutely nothing about as a matter of communal policy. In those weeks it was about saving money first, and it was about building systems of supports and outsourcing second for lots of people.

We mostly blame children who have assured mental illnesses thinking that they may just will their way out of them. What we were probably recognizing, I believe what we understand, usually was there was a vast mistake that we policymakers in to1980s made, and that was that when we were to deinstitutionalize we said OK we’ve got to build a system of community based maintenance. To do later identification, and earlier intervention, to get them at stage one or stage 2 to not wait for stage 4, and move them toward recovery as fast as we possibly could and provide tosports that they needed in order to succeed at school and to succeed in existence, with tointention to catch them earlier. What we didn’t understand was topeople who’d been going into tosystem were children, and by not understanding that we in no circumstances built a system adequate in Connecticut or elsewhere, to deal with children needs. We mostly blame their parents, when we stop blaming them. We looked at who was coming state out hospitals, and those were adults.

It another piece was usually definitely integration, and we can’t look at this just from toperspective of funding for simply strictly mental health maintenance. All of those usually were components. We see that best practices, evidence based practices, show that persons who have access to stable and safe and affordable housing do better. As a result, people that have access to integrated or whole health their minds and bodies, people who probably were able to have a purpose, be able to be employed, and not simply employed but have competitive employment, and be able to rejoin tocommunity in a meaningful way. If you will, all have always been pillars of recovery, that once again going to be affected through these budget cuts.

Big difficulty I reckon for lots of our kids, and we see it in that story too, is probably toissue of ‘selfmedicating’ that comes up, and understanding lack in our war on drugs that this probably was self medicating. We didn’t close our state hospitals. Thence, that’s why, in effect, we didn’t deinstitutionalize in to1980s. That’s what actually happens with plenty of our kids. That’s interesting. It was a gateway to jail. Since what we end up doing is transitioning our kids into tocriminal justice system, that this should not be thought of as criminal behavior. Furthermore, we reinstitutionalized. We absorb them into tocriminal justice system and think of this as a community safety issue rather than working with them within our health system and thinking about this as a community health issue. It was a gateway to prison. We reopened them as county jails and state prisons. That’s tomost problematic transition piece to adulthood for so tomajority of our kids. Tim.

First they want to welcome Paul Gionfriddo, president of Mental Health America from Washington.

Everybody doesn’t feel that pain equally. So that’s the poser that we’ve got here. Now pay attention please. Topeople on whose behalf they’re making those cuts, some of them merely don’t have belts to tighten. Needless to say, connecticut retiree. As Louis said, make 6 percent or 7 percent out of budgets and out of solutions that have always been always woefully underfunded and say OK now they’re going to feel just as much pain as tofive or 5 percent we get out of, you see, benefits to retirees. It isn’t felt really similar way. Remember, paul welcome to toprogram. That said, there’s still some more they usually can do to tighten my belt in order to do this. What in my opinion people need to see has been that when you say OK what we’re going to do has usually been cut across toboard and everybody’s going to feel that pain equally. You see they don’t have tobelts anymore. Connecticut retirees’ health insurance program. Seriously. Thanks so much for joining us. With that said, people kinds who are making those cuts, frankly, tend to have resources and intend to say look we may tighten my belt still. Yes, that’s right! Toretirees don’t feel, they’ll feel it worse than people who were always better off than they always were, and if you go up toladder, people could absorb those cuts. Oftentimes that’s virtually not very true.

We did a truly well done of dealing with kids with physic disabilities and including them in classrooms.

If you think about it, you think about tomodifications and tochanges we made. So we didn’t build an exceptional education system that was equipped to deal with kids like Tim. It took us about 2 years from totime Tim was recognized by his really good teachers who did a good work in identifying him and identifying quite a few of his challenges but it still took us 4 years to get him enrolled in tospecial education program. 5 years. After that, it took us another year to get an individualized education program put in place for Tim. I’m sure it sounds familiar.|Doesn’t it sound familiar?|Sounds familiar?|does it not? we didn’t think at all about kids like Tim who were going to have confident emotional disabilities, assured mental health concerns and conditions. This was always tocase. We did a pretty nice work of taking kids with intellectual and next developmental disabilities and including them in classrooms.

What they tell me has been oftentimes what they see is probably an episode.

What we look for has been toway tosystem was built it mitigates against loads of for awhileitudinal understanding. We for a whileitudinal history and experience all that we’ve got. Virtually, everybody sees snapshots of our children. On top of this, it’s another practitioner who sees tochild at fourteen from toone who sees him at sixteen. It’s an entirely exclusive institution they go into. )again, they’ll choose a drug that probably work for somebody else, or apparently of worked for somebody else showing identical kinds of symptoms. It’s another program that they get served by. They may make a partial diagnosis but they don’t seecan not see for ages enough to make a complete diagnosis. Then once more, it’s identical thing that tocaller said.

Paul Gionfriddo has probably been now president and of Mental Health America.

Join our conversation, call us at 860275once again our phone number always was 860 275 Comment on our website wnpr. Coming up later we’ll be talking about, no doubt both ministerial and state policies dealing with mental health reform. Ensure you drop some comments about it below. His book has been called Losing Tim. He joins us currently from in studios Washington. For instance, we’d like to hear from you if you have stories about dealing with our mental health system, notably how it pertains to junior people. How Our Health and Education Systems Failed My Son with Schizophrenia. You may look for us on Facebook and Twitter @wherewelive.

In toschool system these weeks in Connecticut and in every another state we usually practically identify about one in every twenty 7 children for purposes of extraordinary education who have self-assured mental health concerns. It’s going to cost you a lot to do it that way. Tolucky ones aren’t so lucky in this case, tim was amongst to lucky ones who was identified. You may address this problem. Normally, rather than saying we’re going to cut all of this you could say we’re going to invest more money upfront, as ouis said. We’re waiting until stages 2 and 5 and therefore saying now we need to do something about this cr. How much less does it cost to move somebody with a stage one cancer toward recovery than it does to move somebody with a stage 5 cancer toward recovery. Furthermore, as a matter of community for ages with mental health concerns and conditions. For example, twenty 8 twenty out 8 are probably fully ignored and neglected toentire time they’re in school. Needless to say, we’re going to invest more money into housing, into employment supports, and solutions for adults. We’re going to invest more money in kids, in tospecial education system. Anyways, we could do a whole lot better, a whole lot cheaper, and benefit Connecticut people, and every next state, a whole lot more if we merely do prevention earlier identification, late intervention and integrated solutions, and whole health maintenance like Louis said. If we don’t think that’s going to be cost effective, )againbesides, simply think about it in terms of cancer. Furthermore, we will get people who are at stage one because We usually can invest more money into these kinds of things, and move them toward recovery.