09/05/07 LOC Meeting

Audio of about 90 minutes of the afternoon session of the Legislative Oversight Committee is available to listen to or download. Technical difficulties on the state's part meant much of the morning session wasn't available.

The afternoon session includes discussion on plans for closure of Dorothea Dix and John Ulmstead, Update on 2007 Legislative Actions, and an update on ongoing projects: Housing 400 Initiative; Hospital Utilization Pilot; Data Collection; Crisis Services Implementation; and Performance Indicators.

It is recommended you download the file (24.5 mb) here so that you may skip over parts you might not want to hear. You may also listen to the file here, although it will stream into your computer without the option of skipping around.

The sound quality is sufficient, but reduced for smaller file size.

Read More......

A tribute to John Rowe

Originally published July 22, 2007, by the Asheville Citizen-Times under the headline "John Rowe was a great friend to families dealing with mental illness"

John's obituary can be read here.

By David Cornwell

I’m not really qualified to write a postscript to John Rowe’s life. I only knew John for several years, primarily as a fellow advocate through the Western Carolina affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). Indeed, I envied his lifelong friend who gave the eulogy at John’s memorial service Sunday, who so eloquently captured his essence when he said that John was the kind of man everyone wanted to claim as a friend.

But having known John for such a short time perhaps helps underscore the ripples he and his wife, Florence, sent through our community, ripples you likely don’t even know touched you, ripples that have made Western North Carolina a bit more humane and compassionate place to live. Our region and our state have lost a great man and many area mental health advocates have lost a huge part of their soul.

John was an imposing figure. Small in stature, he had a demeanor that commanded respect. He had a ruggedly handsome face I always pictured belonging to a New England sea captain or a welterweight boxer, not to the Ohio educator he was – a teacher, counselor and administrator most of his career.

John had a gift for teaching, a gift he continued to share in retirement. He and his wife, Florence, were instrumental in building and leading NAMI’s Family-to-Family classes, classes for families of those with a mental illness, teaching family members how to cope, how to care for themselves, how to again have hope.

For many families, those classes were their first toeholds to step out of isolated, hellish existences. For many families, those classes were the first ray of light in the nightmare that had become their lives. For many, those classes literally helped hold their families together.

And while the words “tireless” and “selfless” are often used to the point of triteness, it is no exaggeration to say that John and Florence worked tirelessly and selflessly to improve the lives of those with a mental illness, their friends and families. They worked, and Florence continues to work, toward a better community, serving on numerous boards and committees, organizing and volunteering for many events related to mental health and other community interests.

John’s humor was almost as legendary as his allegiance to the Cleveland Indians. And as his friend said, John took as much pleasure in setting up his jokes as in the telling. Indeed, the first time I met John, he was stepping up to share a couple of jokes to start a NAMI meeting.

Humor was part and parcel of the diplomat John was. He used humor as a tool. He used it to lighten the mood before a committee or board met to discuss weighty issues affecting the quality of life of some of our region’s most vulnerable citizens.

His diplomacy served the community well. While other voices were louder, John’s voice was measured, consistent and respected. But John could be as frank as frank can be and had no problem asking the tough questions of officials. And on those occasions that John spoke with indignation, softly but firmly pounding the table for emphasis, you knew that here was a man concerned only with what was right and just. “Integrity” might well be defined as John Rowe.

Through the years of a relatively stable mental health system and the chaos of a system now gone mad, John and Florence have been constants. Though public indifference made it seem no one was listening, John and Florence spoke on. They were the glue that held many advocates together. And the loss of an advocate of John’s caliber is truly tragic. Certainly, there will not soon be another advocate with his dignity, humor, personableness and perseverance. For John understood that one person can make a difference, or as was the case with he and Florence, two people.

My wife and I count ourselves lucky to have been touched, encouraged, and inspired by the ripples started by John and Florence.

Perhaps this commentary is yet another ripple of John’s life. As one advocate said following his memorial service, the greatest honor anyone can give John’s legacy is to follow in his footsteps.

So I hope the ripple of these words reaches out and touches at least a few of you. It’s OK and good to mail a check to charity or put it in the collection plate each week. But find a cause to help make the world a better place and get involved. You can change the world. John Rowe helped teach me that.

David Cornwell is executive director of North Carolina Mental Hope, a nonprofit working to increase public awareness and support of mental health. He can be contacted at 654-8754 or david@ncmentalhope.org.

Read More......

Farewell to a true advocate: John Rowe

Our deepest sympathies to the family of Florence Rowe on the death of John Rowe. Our state and our area have lost one of its most powerful voices advocating for what is right and just in the treatment of citizens with mental illness. Certainly, there will not soon be another advocate with the dignity, humor, personableness and perseverance of John. Click here for John's obituary.

Read More......

A Better Mental Health “Parity” Law for North Carolina

By Debra Dihoff, NAMI-NC

Right now, more than 30 states do a better job than North Carolina in providing equal insurance coverage for mental and physical illness for their citizens. North Carolina law provides limited mental health “parity,” requiring coverage only for state employees. But this is the year to make a change for the better and allow more of us to benefit from needed mental health and substance abuse treatment.

This year, the General Assembly is seriously discussing legislation that would extend the success we’ve had with mental health parity to more insurance plans and to a wider range of conditions, including substance abuse disorders.

As any person with a mental illness or the members of their family will tell you, mental disorders are as real as cancer or heart disease. Why should insurance plans provide any less coverage because the brain needs treatment instead of the heart or the liver? The brain is arguably the most important part of our bodies, and yet we allow plans to provide less coverage for its treatment than for other physical ailments.

In addition, the recovery rates for mental illnesses are actually greater than those for many “physical” illnesses. For instance, success rates for treating mental health disorders are 60-80 percent – well in excess of the 41-52 percent treatment success rate for heart disease. For too long, we have allowed stigma and fear to prevail over science.

Expanding parity will provide needed hope to the one in five individuals who will experience a mental illness—many of whom find it difficult to afford treatment. Studies show that only one out of three adults (and even fewer children) receives the mental health services they need.

As other states have realized, parity makes good business sense. In the workplace, major depression alone costs employers an estimated $44 billion in lost productive work time every year. And, untreated depression has serious implications for those who live with other chronic health conditions. According to the National Business Group on Health, employees with both diabetes and depression have healthcare costs that are 4.5 times higher than those without depression.

In our classrooms, more than twenty percent of our children have a diagnosable mental health or addictive disorder and too often they lack the treatment they need to succeed at school. Nearly half of our teenagers who have a mental health disorder drop out of high school—the highest rate of any disability group. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that half of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14, but there are long delays before people receive the help they need.

Congress is considering federal legislation to equalize coverage for mental and physical illnesses. But Raleigh cannot wait for Washington to act. We don’t know when a bill will pass Congress and we need a solution now that meets our needs here in North Carolina.

This past year, we have seen countless newspaper articles about those with mental illnesses ending up in emergency departments, homeless, in the criminal justice system and in our state hospitals. Untreated and under-treated mental illness is taking a terrible toll on our families and our communities.

Let’s change paths and give the hope of earlier help for mental health and substance abuse disorders to more of our citizens. It’s the smart choice for North Carolina. It’s the right choice. It’s time for a better parity law.

Debra G. Dihoff is Executive Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness North Carolina

Read More......

Resolution supporting the merger of Foothills and Catawba LMEs

Believing the true measure of transformation of the state’s mental health system is how much it improves the quality of life for those affected by mental illness, the Board of Directors of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Western Carolina and NAMI Four Seasons affiliates endorse the following resolution supporting the merger of all counties being served by Foothills Area Authority with Mental Health Services of Catawba County.

It is our opinion that a partial merger of just Burke and Catawba counties is ill conceived, would negatively impact mental health clients, and would further fragment an already fragmented system. Furthermore, the input of families and mental health consumers as represented by the Foothills Consumer and Family Advisory Council, representing a voice for the voiceless, has not been sought nor heard.

Therefore, be it resolved that:

Whereas, Local Management Entities (LMEs) not serving a minimum of six counties or 200,000 population by July 1, 2007, will face a 10% cut in administrative funds; and,

Whereas Burke County Commissioners have indicated a strong desire to leave Foothills Area Authority and merge with Mental Health Services of Catawba County, thereby increasing Catawba’s service population from 151,000 to 242,000; and,

Whereas this merger would not reduce the total number of LMEs statewide, as would a full merger between the four-county Foothills and Catawba LMEs, but would instead leave a newly configured three-county Foothills LME of McDowell, Caldwell and Alexander Counties, ranked 88th, 89th and 93rd of the state’s 100 counties in per capita mental health spending; and,

Whereas the resulting Foothills LME would serve a population of just 159,000, leaving it subject to the 10% cut in administrative funds; and,

Whereas, Burke County Commissioners have not sought consultation with mental health clients and caregivers as represented by the Foothills Consumer and Family Advisory Council; and

Whereas, many of the principal physical facilities used by all Foothills clients are located in Burke County; and

Whereas, other single-county LMEs across the state have merged to form multi-county LMEs, meeting both the population and county requirements of G.S. 122, such as the recent merger of the single-county Pitt LME with eight other counties to form East Carolina Behavioral Health:

Therefore, we ask that the Department of Health and Human Services work to facilitate a merger of the full Foothills and Catawba LMEs and further that they give guidance as to the criteria by which such mergers will be approved in the future, criteria based on the best interests of all clients of mental health services. Further, we ask that the Governor’s Advocacy Council for Persons with Disabilities or other appropriate agency assess the basis of this approval and the propriety of a decision that seems to be counter to both the Department and Division’s stated goals as well the benefit of many clients of mental health services.

We respectfully requests these actions to ensure that mergers of Local Management Entities be made only after well-reasoned and researched assessments of what is best for all consumers of mental health services and not on what is most expedient, especially when such action benefits more urban areas while negatively affecting our most vulnerable citizens in our most vulnerable counties.

Be it hereby resolved this 20th day of March 2007.

NAMI Western Carolina Board
James Pitts, Co-President, (828) 258-5359, JPitts@unca.edu
Liz Smith, Co-Presudent (828) 738-0238, lsmith123@earthlink.net

NAMI Four Seasons Board
Sandy Goble, President, (828) 884-6103, kgoble@citcom.net
Leslie Huntley, Vice-President, (828) 894-3507, huntleywhiteoak@alltell.net

Read More......