A Backdrop for Consideration of US Mental Health Policy Reforms
New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services May 8, 2014
As so many of us are trying to digest the substantive differences between federal mental health legislation proposals advanced by Congressmen Tim Murphy and Ron Barber, we have prepared a working comparison between the 2 proposals. We are continuing to scour the bills and revise this summary in an effort to try to get this as accurate as possible. There’s a lot of detail here and, accordingly, we welcome any comments. This is simply offered in the hope it can help guide consideration of what each bill is offering.
Both bills have emphasized the need to ensure we are favoring and working to expand the use of evidence based and emerging best practices. Accordingly, click here for a list of these that we have compiled from a recent series in Psychiatric Services and from a variety of other sources.
We owe a lot to Congressman Murphy for focusing us all on addressing some of our most pressing mental health policy and programmatic needs. When I met with him recently, I felt the depth of his sincere determination to reduce avoidable homelessness, incarceration and suffering amongst our community and their families. As I told him that day, we greatly appreciate his raising the challenges he’s identified and are supportive of some but not many of the strategies he’s currently proposing to address them.
In that spirit, NYAPRS will be releasing a statement on Congressman Barber’s bill later this afternoon.