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| Information and referral line: 248.706.0591 |
AMI Oakland County Southfield, MI 48076 Phone: 248.203.1998 News Media Contact Publicity - Cheryl Patel 248-706-0591 Website comments or recommendations should be directed to: |
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| Advocacy |
| Advocacy for AMI Oakland covers many areas, such as education, fighting stigma etc. This section of our Website deals with two distinct areas where AMI Oakland advocates to make a difference. Those areas are; helping to change and improve the system for persons with mental illness and their families and advocating to get services needed by persons with mental illness. |
Building a Better Mental Health System The current mental health system has been crippled by inadequate funding, lack of leadership and accountability. It is a fragmented system, with rationed health care ("Managed Care"). Many people are denied services. Persons without Medicaid are being denied access. Some people have experienced reductions in services. Staffing is inadequate due to budget limitations and non-competitive wages. We propose that the current system can be fixed to greatly improve quality, efficiency and accountability to provide a system that truely serves the citizens of Michigan rather than put money in the pockets of statkholders of private companies. See proposed, strategic changes to the public mental health system: Benefits of Public Mental Health System 2.0 Complementary changes to the public education system The public education system is responsible for development of the minds of our youth. Education should include more that just "reading, writing and arithmitic." It is an enviroment for development of socially, well adjusted citizens with healthy minds, who are prepared to be successful adults in the Uited States of America. Years ago, community mental health had a role in dealing with mental disturbances in children. That was essentially abandoned when community mental heath essentially became a Medicaid agency. Many children need mental health care to succeed in school and the rest of their lives. See proposed reforms of the public education system: Comments to the School Safety and Mental Health Commission The Commission web site is at School Safety and Mental Health Commission Town Hall Meetings In 2016, we orgaized town hall meetings where people who are experincing services of the mental health system could present their problems and concerns to legislators. See the town hall flier at Town Hall Meetings. The meetings were video recorded. These meetings were recorded several years ago, but the experiences and concerns are still relevant. Below are links to the video recordings. Oakland County Town Hall, Septenber 22. The video is in three parts: Macomb County Town Hall, September 28
Wayne County Town Hall, October 15 Monroe County Town Hall, October 3 |
MDHHS 2016 Effort to Define a Future Michigan Mental Health System Section 298 of the Michigan budget proposed in February, 2016, would have enabled the transfer of funding from the current mental health system to HMOs--privatization of mental health services. This received major public opposition and was withdrawn. Liutenant Governor Calley organized a 298 Stakeholdes committee (grew to about 120 people with many advocates) that met in several sessions ending in June. That committee developed values, what is currently good and bad and recommendations for features of a future system. This initiative influenced a revised Section 298 that calls for MDHHS to present a proposal for system changes to the legislature in January, 2017. Information on this effort can be found at Section 298 Initiative Documents from that committee may no longer be available on the MDHHS web site. Then MDHHS announced a new committee of 4 MDHHS managers to develop a propoasl. A strong push by advocates led to the formation of a "Section 298 Facilitation Work Group, composed of representatives of selected stakeholder organizations. That work group participated in the development and analysis of public input to the MDHHS initiative. Public input started with forums held acoss the state for three "Affinity Group" communities--consumers and families, providers and payers. MDHHS issued an "interim draft" document in December that presents the MDHHS summary of recommendations that emerged from Affinity Group sessions for public comment. The document does not present a MDHHS proposal, it presents a summary of the Affinity groups comments. A revised draft was presented to the legislature January 15, 2017, that presents essentially the same results but with more history and plans. Since then, MDHHS accepted proposals until February 4, 2017. The proposals were required to take the form of questions from MDHHS, so the model descriptions are fragmented. The proposal documents were published by MDHHS in a 507-page document on February 16. with a public hearing scheduled for February 24, in Lansing. Our proposal is number 2, a proposal by some of the advocates who sre members of the MDHHS work group submitted number 1. A proposal by Oakland County Community Mental Health Authority, Macomb County Community Mental Health and Detroit Wayne Mental Health Authority is number 27. On March 15, 2017, a final MDHHS report was presented to the legislature. Consideration of this system transformation was terminated after Gretchen Witmer became Governor. See the proposal for "Public Mental Health System 2.0, above. Advocacy General Information |
 Below are other sources of information and suggestions for participation.
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| How Can You Advocate for mental illness? |
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