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BETTS CALLS FOR MORE AWARENESS
OF MENTAL ILLNESS ISSUES

Commissioner Addresses Statewide Advocates and Consumers

CHATTANOOGA – The state’s leading mental health official is making a commitment to greater public awareness about mental illness issues. Commissioner Virginia Trotter Betts of the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities targeted public education as one of the leading challenges to the mental health community in her speech to Saturday’s session of the annual meeting of the Tennessee Chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI).

“One in every five Tennesseans will have a diagnosable disorder during their lifetime so we all must be committed to talking more about mental illness to overcome the negative connotations associated with seeking treatment,” Betts said. “Mental health is essential to overall health, and the first step is to know more.”

Mental health experts cite the stigma of mental illness as the predominant barrier preventing people from getting treatment.

Betts also applauded the 50-year history of the department, noting the department’s role in helping to create NAMI 20-years ago. Among other accomplishments of the department since 1953:

• The development of strong grass roots support for mental health through the funding and support of the family and consumer movement.
• The development of the Creating Homes Initiative, partnering with communities to create housing options for people with mental illness. The initiative has developed a total of 3,276 new housing options ranging from home ownership to supported housing, with funding from state, local and federal governments as well as foundations.
• Efforts to decriminalize mental illness through the Mental Health/Criminal Justice Project coordinated by the department and efforts to provide training and education to promote and provide early identification of persons with mental illness within the criminal justice system.
• Title 33 Law Revision, which gives the department the mechanism for its statewide planning council, involving consumers and family members to advise the department on key issues. The Title 33 Revision also brought more focus on children and youth and codified a major shift from institutional services to community based services.

Betts also outlined the mental health community’s greatest challenges ahead:

• Working to bring new contractors into TennCare Partners, the behavioral health portion of the TennCare program for people who are poor, disabled or uninsured. The new contracts will be in place in 2004 and will provide an environment for better provider networks, stronger oversight of services and more emphasis on a broad continuum of care.
• Responding to the strong public needs characteristic of an economic downturn.
• Focusing on early detection and treatment of behavioral issues among children.
• Focusing on educating the public that mental illnesses are real, treatable and recoverable, keeping mental health issues on the agenda with local elected officials and the general public.

Tennesseans can learn more about mental health, including where to call in a crisis, where to get mental health services in Tennessee or where people can volunteer to help others, visit www.state.tn.us/mental.