OMH Commissioner Ann Sullivan and a number of executive team members who oversee key strategic functions (slide 6) gave presentations at last Wednesday’s virtual and in-person statewide Town Hall that offered the attached presentation summarizing the initiatives to date that they have or are in the process of implementing.
Look for OMH to issue a version with accessibility features like alt text for screen readers that will be posted to the Office of Planning page.
We hailed OMH’s and the Legislature’s inclusion of several initiatives that the Alliance and our allies helped to secure and support in recent budgets, including:
- Another peer led outreach and engagement INSET program (slide 54),
- community hospital-based peer bridger programs (55)
- Clubhouse programs (14)
- renewals of the Academy of Peer Services (56) and the New York Peer Specialist Independent Practice Association (57)
- at least 3 community behavioral health crisis response pilot programs to implement health-led response protocols for mental health and substance use disorder crises in an urban, suburban and rural area consistent with the recommendations of the Daniel’s Law Task Force (36)
- the previously authorized 10 Supportive Crisis Stabilization Centers and 8 Intensive Crisis Stabilization Centers (35) and
- strong support for the work of the OMH of Office of Diversity and Inclusion (OMH Office of Diversity and Inclusion (72).
We also successfully advocated for the use of Incident Review Panels and the issuance of a detailed Olmstead Plan, both of which will increase state and local accountability for system coordination and access to service that support New Yorkers with disabilities to live and work in most integrated settings of choice.
We decried the use of involuntary treatment, especially in counties that do not offer central elements of a continuum that would greatly enhance efforts to engage, serve and support people with major mental health, addiction and trauma related challenges. Most notably, very few counties offer a combination of INSET, crisis stabilization, respite, peer bridger and clubhouse services.
In our testimony, we also called on the state to engage in a restructuring of the state hospital system and a return to carving out behavioral health services from the managed care program as central strategies to promote major reinvestments of savings to boost desperately needed funds for community services across the state.
Look for a copy of our testimony later this week.