This past July, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) awarded the Mississippi Department of Mental Health (DMH) a grant to plan how to develop Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) in Mississippi.
CCBHCs are a recently developed model for delivering mental health and substance use services in the community. CCBHCs are required to provide certain core services:
- Crisis Services
- Treatment Planning
- Screening, Assessment, Diagnosis & Risk Assessment
- Outpatient Mental Health & Substance Use Services
- Targeted Case Management
- Outpatient Primary Care Screening and Monitoring
- Community-Based Mental Health Care for Veterans
- Peer, Family Support & Counselor Services
- Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services
CCBHCs must follow national standards about care coordination, serving anyone who presents to them, evaluating their services and being patient and family-centered.
We at Families as Allies believe this model has the potential to improve mental health care in Mississippi, but only if the state implements them with fidelity, has strong financial and programmatic accountability measures and if they develop all aspects in partnership with service recipients and their families.
Several committees are working on this grant:
- Steering Committee
- CCBHC Learning Collaborative
- Executive Standing Committee
- Infrastructure Standing Committee Workgroups
- CCBHC Certification Standing Committee
- Quality Standing Committee
- Services and Supports Standing Committee
- Stakeholder Engagement, Outreach, and Communications Standing Committee
You can learn more about and sign up for any of these committees at the bottom of this page on the DMH’s website.
We especially encourage people who deal with mental illness or substance use, their families, and peer-run and family-run organizations to sign up for the Stakeholder Engagement, Outreach, and Communications Standing Committee. According to DMH’s website, this committee will “engage people with lived/living experience, peers, and peer organizations, Federally Qualified Health Centers, and other healthcare providers, community stakeholders, tribal organizations, behavioral health providers, schools, corrections stakeholders, and other impacted communities.”
The DMH contracted with Health Management Associates, a New York City-based research and consulting firm, to develop DMH’s draft guidance to engage Mississippians with mental illness and substance use disorders and their families. The DMH is now asking the Stakeholder Engagement, Outreach, and Communications Standing Committee to respond to this document. Families as Allies joined this committee after learning about this process.
We encourage anyone who wants to make sure that DMH’s engagement policies are responsive to people with lived experience with mental illness and substance use and their families to sign up for this committee. We also urge all peer and family-run organizations and leaders who are already on this committee to make sure you look for meeting notices and attend all scheduled meetings. Your input is very much needed.
Please let us know if we can support anyone in becoming more involved with the CCBHC planning grant in general or the Stakeholder Engagement, Outreach, and Communications Standing Committee in particular. We want everyone at the table.
