(Our view) Mental health funding

Published 5:00 am Friday, June 22, 2018

A coalition of residents who see first-hand how mental health issues affect the community received more good news in recent days with the donation of more money to help initiate a plan to improve health care for area residents.

The money is being raised through the Stephen K. Griffith Memorial Fund and is being accepted by the Cullman Area Mental Health Foundation. The late attorney’s family started the fund with a $25,000 donation and that was followed by $11,000 more in recent days from others in the community.

The mental health committee, which is separate from the foundation, came together to assist WellStone, the foundation and other entities in the community to establish better funding for mental health and treatment that can reach more people.

Federal and state governments have reduced funding for mental health while asking local communities to do more. That was not supposed to be how the idea of moving mental health care to communities was supposed to work. Funding was intended to follow the plan, but it never came.

Neal Morrison has been working with the committee to bring all of the entities — judges, law enforcement, medical professionals, counselors — to the table to reach an agreement on what needs to be done. That has worked. And the group has a plan in place to improve health care for patients needing treatment.

The goals include three phases of additional or improved care for area residents with mental health issues:

— provide mental health services for indigent patients.

— expand programs and training, including licensed mental health counselors to work with schools.

— establish consistent after-care programs to ensure those who have received treatment continue to take medicine and receive followup treatment as needed.

Some good advances are already happening for the community, including Cullman City Schools teachers receiving training on how to recognize and address students with mental health issues.

The challenge in the mental health field is establishing funding that cares for not only those with insurance, but those who do not have medical coverage.

In less than a month, the mental health foundation has received $36,000 from the community. The goal, initially is to secure funding of $250,000. Even at $100,000, many of the plans can become reality for Cullman County.

The incident that claimed Griffith’s life, along with many others that law enforcement officers and judicial officials have encountered, and a rise in suicides sounded an alarm across the area.

Many of the officials who deal directly with mental health issues fear that without aggressive intervention, more tragedies will occur in the community.

The fear is real. The nation is seeing a rise in mental health cases that coincides with reduced funding over the last decade or more.

Cullman County has a reputation for solving problems and not waiting around for assistance that is often slow or doubtful.

Increasing funds for mental health care is possible at the local level. There are also indications that state government will look more seriously at the issue when the Legislature returns to work in 2019.

In the meantime, there is no reason to wait for state or federal government funding. That hopefully will come in some amount later.

Contributing through the Stephen K. Griffith Memorial Fund will speed the local programs needed to provide greater care for residents in our community.