This month we also distributed to stakeholders (and posted on our website) a new resource called “An Introduction to Arizona’s Public Behavioral Health System.” It’s a high-level summary for people who wish to better understand who we are and what we do. The short document covers the service delivery structure and the continuum of care available, member enrollment and demographics, funding, utilization, and outcomes information. A big thanks goes out to Mike Sheldon and Melissa Thomas for helping put this together and for being patient with all of us “backseat drivers”.
We’re getting lots of great feedback and publicity on the flow chart and other helpful resources we posted to our website a couple of weeks ago. Our goal is to help individuals know what to do when they are concerned about their own or someone else’s mental health. We know that early detection and intervention can make a big difference, just like it does for high blood pressure, diabetes, and other medical illnesses. Our hope is that people will become much more aware of the many available resources and support that can be accessed when mental health problems are just surfacing. Here’s the video clip of Dr. Nelson on Horizon last week.
Dr. Salek, the Prevention Team and the Office of Individual and Family Affairs Team did a great job putting together this fabulous material together. We plan to add a resource on the civil commitment process as well in the coming days. As an FYI, there has been over 550 calls to the two support lines that were established for people who had questions or needed support following the tragedy in Tucson.
