Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration

CMHS Consumer Affairs E-News
December 20, 2006, Vol. 06-132

New Resources on Primary Care, Criminal Justice, and Self-Direction Related to Mental Health Available

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has released two new publications from the Center for Mental Health Services' (CMHS) Building Bridges Series and three new fact sheets on the issue of mental health and self-direction. The Building Bridges Series are reports of CMHS' dialogue meetings that examine approaches which impact personal and mental health system transformation. Dialogue participants discuss their experiences, identify factors that promote and hinder recovery of people and mental health care systems, and offer recommendations to overcome obstacles to improve opportunities for individuals to recover.

The Building Bridges: Mental Health Consumers and Primary Health Care Representatives in Dialogue publication discusses the findings of a two-day dialogue meeting between mental health consumers and primary care representatives, including providers, researchers and policymakers. Topics discussed included the availability, affordability, and quality of, medical and mental health services; interaction of general health and mental health; cross-training in primary care and mental health care and others. The report is available online at http://samhsa.gov/publications/allpubs/sma06-4040/.

The Building Bridges: Consumers and Representatives of the Mental Health and Criminal Justice Systems in Dialogue publication provides consumers, providers, advocates, policy makers and representatives from both criminal justice and mental health systems with an understanding of issues that mental health consumers experience in the criminal justice system. Issues discussed include diversion from incarceration, prevention prior to people with mental illnesses entering into jails and prisons, and community reentry efforts. In addition, factors were discussed at both consumer level and systems level that promote or hinder recovery from mental illnesses. The report is available online at http://samhsa.gov/publications/allpubs/SMA05-4067/.

The Mental Health and Self-Direction Fact Sheets provide an overview of the principles that focus on promoting consumer choice and control of services and supports that foster recovery as critical elements in the process of transforming America's mental health care system as well as approaches to implementing these principals.

Free additional copies of these publications and factsheets are available by calling SAMHSA's National Mental Health Information Center at 1-800-789-2647 or 1-866-889-2647 (TDD).

*************************************************
To subscribe or unsubscribe to this list, please visit the Consumer Survivor page of the Center for Mental Health Services Web site at: http://samhsa.gov/consumersurvivor/

The Center for Mental Health Services is a component of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, United States Department of Health and Human Services.