We appreciate Bo Bowen’s thoughtful response to Joy Hogge’s September 3, 2021 opinion piece in the Northside Sun “Instead of fighting, the state should work with the Feds. Mr. Bowen points out that the state’s mental health system has faced multiple legal challenges for its over-reliance on institutional care since the 1970s.
Mr. Bowen was a social worker at Mississippi State Hospital and then went on to become a Deputy Administrator of the Division of Medicaid, where he worked for 25 years. While he was at the Division of Medicaid, he oversaw the development of Mississippi’s Olmstead Plan in the early 2000s. Mr. Bowen’s insights into both programmatic and systemic issues give a clear vision for the need for a robust and responsive community-based mental health system.
