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Last week we shared with you that on April 30, the State of Mississippi published its remedial plan to address the issues identified in the mental health lawsuit. We also shared concerns that the plan did not describe how the plan would assess if people with mental illness were benefitting from it,  if they were satisfied with the support they receive and if the plan helped them meet their goals.

At the time that we wrote last week’s blog, we did not know that there is an Olmstead page on the Department of Mental Health’s website. This Olmstead page provides some data and information about additions and changes to community-based services the department has made. We encourage you to look through it.

Olmstead is the name of the Supreme Court lawsuit that established that the Americans with Disabilities Act applies to people with mental illness and that they should receive the right kinds of services and supports to live in the community if they want to. Every state was mandated in the early 2000s to develop an Olmstead plan. This Olmstead Checklist from the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors describes how states can develop these mandated plans.

Mississippi’s remedial plan to address the lawsuit includes the use of Program of Assertive Community Treatment (PACT) teams. PACT teams provide comprehensive community-based support to adults with mental illness who might otherwise require institutional care.  PACT teams, when implemented with fidelity, are evidence-based.  In other words, they have been objectively shown to work.  The plan also relies on Intensive Community Outreach and Recovery Teams (ICORT) for rural areas. We do not have enough information to know if these teams are based on national standards or evidence-based practices.

A number of news articles related to mental health in Mississippi were published this past week: