Source:
CMHDA's Newsletter, Volume IV, Issue I, February 7, 2005
We did it!
Proposition 63 is no longer a wish – it is a reality. Thanks to the
hard work, financial contributions and dedication of many
Californians over the past couple of years -- with a special thanks
to former Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg and Rusty Selix, the
official co-proponents of Proposition 63 -- the Mental Health
Services Act (MHSA) is now law in California. And we must begin the
second phase of the campaign, which is implementation.
According to
the MHSA, counties, along with the state Department of Mental
Health, have the primary responsibility for implementing this
important new initiative. Counties (and cities, as applicable) are
responsible for working with individuals served, families and other
local stakeholders to prepare and submit to the state Department of
Mental Health (DMH) and the Oversight and Accountability Commission
a 3-year plan for implementing the MHSA.
As county
mental health directors and staff are well aware, hard work is
already underway in local communities to begin turning the vision of
the MHSA into reality. The vision, as outlined recently by state
DMH Director Stephen W. Mayberg, is “to transform the current mental
health system in California … toward a state-of-the-art culturally
competent system that promotes recovery/wellness through
independence, hope, personal empowerment, and resiliency for adults
and seniors with serious mental illness and for children with
serious emotional disorders and their families.”
DMH last month
released the allocation formula that will be used to let counties
know how much community program planning money they are eligible to
apply for. It includes a minimum allocation of $75,000 for each
county, with the rest based on percentage of population under 200%
of the federal poverty level. It also finalized the guidelines
counties must follow in submitting their applications for the
planning funds (see DMH Letter 05-01), at
http://www.dmh.ca.gov/DMHDocs/docs/letters05/05-01.pdf.
In a nutshell,
counties must include enough details of their proposed activities to
allow reviewers to determine if the county’s proposed Community
Program Planning:
-
Reflects the
scope of the MHSA;
-
Is complete
and responsive to DMH Letter 05-01 requirements; and
-
Describes
reasonable county planning activities in light of the funding
requested.
The deadline
for submitting the funding requests is March 15, 2005. However, as
a courtesy for those counties who submit their funding requests
sooner, DMH will begin reviewing requests as of February 15. DMH
will either approve or disapprove plans within 30 days of receipt.
To learn more about what some of your colleagues are up to with
regard to developing a “plan to plan,” be sure to attend the panel
discussion on county planning activities at our Friday morning All
Directors session (February 11) during the California Mental Health
Policy Forum in San Diego.
Next Steps:
Counties are anxiously awaiting guidance from DMH on two important
issues: 1) the criteria and methodology for distributing services
funding (pursuant to the systems of care provisions for children,
adults and older adults); and 2) guidelines for determining how the
local supplantation language from the MHSA (Section 5891, which
states simply that “these funds shall not be used to supplant
existing state or county funds utilized to provide mental health
services”) will be defined. DMH hopes to have a proposal for the
services funding piece out by March 1. The expected date for the
proposed supplantation guidelines is unknown at this time.
For more
information and guidance on MHSA implementation issues, be sure to
keep an eye on the training opportunities that CIMH is sponsoring
http://www.cimh.org/home/index.cfm. To keep up on any new
information coming out from DMH, go to their special MHSA site at
http://www.dmh.ca.gov/MHSA/default.asp.
