Last month, the disAbility Law Center (dLCV) issued a report on the condition of mental health services in Virginia. It is an eye-opening report: Broken Promises, the Failure of Mental Health Services in Virginia. (Broken Promises Report)
Its findings are direct: “Despite the promises of reform to the mental health service system in the last decade, Virginia’s mental health services system fails to serve many of those in need of its services.”
According to dLCV, there are more than 40,000 Virginians living with serious mental illness and thousands more with less serious emotional disorders that require treatment including an estimated 130,658 children between the ages of 9 and 18 who need treatment. The dLCV which advocates for all people with disabilities to be free from abuse, neglect, and discrimination considers the problem in part to be a misallocation of resources.
As its report points out, on any given month about 10 percent of residents of state hospitals continue to be hospitalized even though their treating professionals have found that they no longer need to be hospitalized. Thirty-one of the 133 individuals in such hospital placements in November, 2013, had been waiting for discharge for more than a year. The problem is that there are inadequate or nonexistent facilities or programs in the community to continue services to these persons. At the same time, there were an estimated 26,990 inmates confined in local and regional jails of whom nearly 25 percent were known or suspected to be mentally ill. More than 3,500 persons in jails were diagnosed with a serious mental illness.
The dLCV maintains that funding is misdirected towards unnecessary hospitalization when funding is needed desperately for community-based crisis response services and housing options for people with mental health needs. Their position is not without controversy. Others maintain that both more hospital spaces and more community-based facilities are needed.
The tragic event surrounding the family of Senator Creigh Deeds has brought the need to the public’s attention. Outgoing Governor Bob McDonnell has proposed a more than $50 million increase in the budget for mental health services and has established a commission to develop a plan for mental health services in the Commonwealth. There is bipartisan support to address the issue in terms of additional funding as well as to amend existing statutes to permit persons who are a danger to themselves and to others to be held for a longer period of time until appropriate treatment is available to them.
We are past the time when we should have met the promises for reform to persons with mental health problems and their families. The 2014 session of the General Assembly must respond. You can view my interview with Colleen Miller, Executive Director of disAbility Law Center of Virginia and another interview with George Braunstein, Director of the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board, both on the topic of mental health reform at Virginia Report.
Del. Ken Plum (D-36th) represents Reston in Virginia’s General Assembly. He can be reached at [email protected].
The editorial in the Sept. 21, 1897 New York Sun, responding to a letter from eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon who had inquired about whether there was a Santa Claus, has become the most reprinted newspaper editorial, according to the Newseum.
Virginia’s father had told her that if she read it in the Sun it was certain to be true. The editor wrote, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.”
Virginians, especially those around the capital city, have long believed in Santa Claus. The “Legendary Santa” has been meeting with boys and girls at Miller and Rhoads — first a department store and now a hotel in Richmond — for more than 75 years.
There is ample proof that he is the “real” Santa Claus for he is able with assistance from the Snow Queen and some technology to call every child by name.
We go as a family of four generations with Jane’s mother and our grandchildren to see him at his latest location at the Children’s Museum of Richmond. Read more about this Virginia tradition in Legendary Santa’s Stories from the Chair. On page six is a photograph of young Jane Durham (now Plum) and her brother visiting Santa many years ago.
Throughout the capital, there is a quickened pace of activity during the holiday season in anticipation of the General Assembly convening on Jan. 8 and the new governor being inaugurated on Jan. 11. There are wish lists from all the agencies and special interests. And, yes, Virginia, if there is a Santa Claus here is my wish list for the legislative session.
Virginia would extend health insurance to nearly half its uninsured working poor by expanding Medicaid. Not only would more people have access to preventative care as well as treatment, but Virginians would get more of their federal tax dollars back and a boost to the economy with the health care jobs being created. Also in the area of health, I want Virginia to increase funding for its presently inadequate mental health care program.
While I am wishing, I want the General Assembly to expand background checks for all gun purchases to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and violent people. I also want the legislature to approve my bill to establish an independent redistricting commission that will fairly and objectively draw legislative boundaries. We would on my wish list repeal the marriage amendment and other discrimination based on sexual orientation. And while we are at it, we need to get the state back to the position of being an equal partner in funding public schools.
None of these goals will be reached by simply wishing for them. Hard work, determination, and public pressure can make them reality. Just like in Santa’s workshop, there will be a lot of work behind the scenes.
Del. Ken Plum represents Reston in the Virginia General Assembly. He writes weekly on Reston Now. He can be reached at [email protected].
The recent tragic stabbing of State Senator Creigh Deeds by his son, who then took his own life, brings to attention the importance of the mental health system and its very fragile condition in Virginia.
While the young Deeds son was evaluated the day before the tragedy by staff of the local mental health board, he was discharged without being held for treatment. Early reports indicated that there was no facility available to accommodate him. Subsequent information seems to indicate that there were several hospitals within reasonable distance that could have taken him, but there is no system for coordination of available facilities and patient needs. At least two investigations are underway to find out what went wrong and why.
Regardless of the facts that are found surrounding this terribly tragic event, there remains a concern that the mental health system in Virginia is inadequate to meet the needs. Clearly the mentally ill are no more violent than the rest of society, and some statistics suggest that a smaller percentage of the mentally ill are violent than in the population at large. At the same time, however, violent people have their own needs for mental health treatment for themselves as well as for the safety of family and society.
The tragic slayings at Virginia Tech demonstrated the consequences of an untreated disease and the faultiness of the system that is supposed to take care of them. The immediate response in Virginia was to provide an instant transfusion of about $40 million to meet the need. Unfortunately with the economic recession and the cutback on spending, that money has mostly disappeared from
the system.
Mental health services had a budget of $424.3 million in FY2009, but that amount had decreased to $386.6 in FY2012. The adoption of a state budget for the 2014-2016 biennium must recognize the continued need and restore and supplement lost funding.
The same Inspector General who is looking into the circumstances of Deeds’ son being released without treatment earlier had looked into this problem system wide. In 2010 the Inspector General found that approximately 200 individuals were returned to the streets in Virginia that year even though there was agreement among mental health professionals that they needed to be hospitalized.
In the view of these professionals, either these individuals were sick enough to harm themselves or others, or they were unable to defend themselves. This is referred to as the “streeting” of individuals with mental illnesses. It occurs when either there is no space for mentally ill people in public facilities or no private facility will take them. About one-third of the persons in local jails are in need of mental health services
My continued prayers are with Senator Creigh Deeds and his family. May time bring about merciful healing. For legislators, may this tragic event spur us to action without the need for more lives lost and communities shattered. The need is clear; we must act responsibly.
Ken Plum has represented Reston in Virginia’s House of Delegates since 1982. He writes a weekly column for Reston Now. He can be reached at [email protected].
There is no program or service for which public dollars can be invested that will have a greater return than those invested in the care and education of young children.
People who work in early childhood and day care programs have known intuitively and anecdotally for a long time that children in their programs were much more likely to be successful by a number of different measures than were children who did not have access to their programs.
Now, however, there are many longitudinal studies that provide empirical evidence that there is an exponential payback from programs aimed at young children. Children who have early learning experiences in quality preschool programs are much more likely to be successful in school and much less likely to be in trouble with the law or to be on public assistance programs.
The return on public investment in preschool education is not immediate; it accrues over time as the young person becomes a teenager then an adult. Just as one of the secrets to financial investments is to leave your money in place for long-term returns, policy makers must recognize that the returns for funding quality day care and preschool education programs are not realized for decades or more.
As Arthur Rolnick and Robert Gruenewald of the Minnesota Federal Reserve Board have said, “Early childhood development programs are rarely portrayed as economic development initiatives. They should be at the top of economic development investment lists for state and local government.”
Unfortunately the budgeting process in the public sector does not work favorably for programs with long-term payback. In a time of recession or sluggish recovery, there is an understandable reluctance to spend money without an obvious and clear benefit. Saving dollars in future projections is not helpful to public officials who must make ends meet when there is not enough money to go around.
Recent innovations in early childhood education are often the first to be cut because there is no immediate feedback about their successes and there are no alumni associations to lobby on their behalf. Those most in need may be the least likely to speak up in the community and before legislative bodies. Obviously the children cannot do it, but too many times their parents lack the knowledge and skills to do so as well.
Fortunately many faith communities have taken up the challenge and operate day care and preschool programs as part of their missions or social justice activities. These same institutions are important voices on behalf of the needs of children as are nonprofits like Voices for Virginia Children and Every Child Matters that advocate on behalf of children for anti-poverty, feeding and educational programs. Devotion to Children provides scholarships to needy families for day care services.
At a time when food stamp programs are being reduced and educational dollars are becoming scarce, it is important that legislators see and understand the long-term benefits of investing in our children.
Del. Ken Plum (D-36th) represents Reston in Virginia’s House of Delegates. He writes a weekly opinion column on Reston Now. He can be reached at [email protected].
