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Round up: A look
at inpatient psychiatry
in New England
CONNECTICUT
(May 2006
Issue)
Wayne Dailey, public information officer for the Department of
Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) reports that state-operated
bed capacity remained constant throughout the state and even saw
the addition of eight beds at the Connecticut Mental Health Center,
whose capacity increased to 33 beds.
Connecticut was one of seven states that received the mental health
system transformation grant from the federal government, to support
movement toward accomplishing the recommendations of the President's
new Freedom Commission on Mental Health Report. "We received the
grant award late last year," Dailey says. "We're working on the
transformation process right now."
"A major feature of our work that Connecticut is trying to highlight
is the implementation of a recovery oriented system of care for
people with mental illness … that encompasses a large part of our
focus in the transformation process," he says. "The transformation
grant also brings together 14 state agencies and the judicial branch
in coordinating their efforts to reduce fragmentation in mental
health care."
The state recently received national attention when a National
Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) survey ranked Connecticut and
Ohio tied for first place with the best rating in the country for
their public mental health systems. "A big part of it had to do
with the recovery orientation," he says. Both states received a
B; the national average for the country was a D (see related story
on page 1).
The NAMI report praised the state for "recovery as a vision and
goal, prior to the President's New Freedom Commission" and for its
training institute with Yale, among other achievements. "One of
the criticisms of Connecticut was in the operation of Connecticut
Valley Hospital, so we are doing some work to look at that," he
says. "There were some issues raised about safety and the use of
seclusion and restraint so we are looking at that. So even though
the state did well, we know there's room for improvement. The candor
of the NAMI report is useful for the states and we appreciated that."
The department has been working toward enhancing community-based
programs and services to develop its recovery-oriented system of
care.
"In Connecticut, one of the highlights of our approach is we're
working toward achieving a system that promotes resilience for all
Connecticut citizens and recovery for people with psychiatric disabilities
… taking more of a preventative kind of approach," Dailey says.
"Part of it is looking at ways to improve the early identification
and intervention with people who may have emerging mental illness."
Pamela Berard
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