Philadelphia Mental Health Plan Testimony
Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania

June 7, 2001

The Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania is pleased to have the opportunity to testify on the Philadelphia Annual Plan for Mental Health Services for Fiscal Year 2002-2003. The Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania (MHASP) is an advocacy, service and education association founded in 1951 to help improve the lives of people with mental illnesses. It's president and chief executive officer, Joseph A. Rogers, is nationally recognized as a leader in the "consumer" movement of people with mental illnesses. This movement is made up of people who want to protect their civil rights, particularly when decisions are being made about their treatment, and to make sure they have a voice at the local, state and national levels when issues that concern them are being discussed.

MHASP employs more than 250 people many are consumers of mental health services. It has been actively involved in providing community-based support programs and services for people with mental illnesses since 1984 and today operates more than 30 such programs in Philadelphia and its surrounding counties.

MHASP is an affiliate of the National Mental Health Association, and supports its activities on behalf of people with mental illnesses. MHASP is also a member agency United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Our Work

The work of the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania is to improve services for and treatment of adults with serious mental illness and children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders. MHASP fulfills this mission by promoting mental health and by working to improve public mental health systems through advocacy, education, and community and self-help services.

A guiding principle behind the Association's work is that mental health care is best provided through a continuum of consumer-driven, community-based services. MHASP provides leadership for building the supports that help people with mental illness overcome their disabilities and live independently in the community.

Advocacy

The Association's history of advocacy begins in its earliest days and involves influencing policy on all levels of government. Over the years, the MHASP staff has acted both independently and in coalition with other constituent groups and public officials to move the mental health system toward the goal of providing affordable, accessible, and appropriate services for all who need them.

MHASP's advocacy work has included successful federal, state, and local efforts to ensure that community-based mental health services remain an option in the era of managed care. And the organization has stayed in the forefront of the movement to close state hospitals and replace them with community-based programs, acting on the belief that individuals with mental illness are best served in the community.

MHASP's staff also advocates on behalf of individual consumers of mental health services both in the community and in state mental hospitals and children and adolescents with emotional disorders and their families. This one-to-one assistance helps people get the mental health treatment, social supports, and legal referrals they need. Many recipients of the Association's case-based advocacy services might have fallen through the cracks of the system without this vital assistance.

Education and Outreach

MHASP offers public education, technical assistance, and information and referral services for consumers, families, and Community Support Programs. The staff also actively responds to demeaning portrayals of people with mental illness in the media, with the intention of changing negative and inaccurate stereotypes. The Association' influence extends locally, regionally, statewide, and nationally.

MHASP and the Internet

The Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania has, since 1994, been using the Internet and electronic communication as another tool to provide information to the public about mental health issues. We began working with a non profit community electronic network, Libertynet, in 1994 as an information provider. We published information on the Internet about the MHA and its services and about mental health resources in the community.

Today we have extensive information on the Web about MHASP, the Mental Health and Aging Advocacy Program, Parents Involved Network and our new Coping Skills for Children and Adolescents that was funded with reinvestment funds from the city.

The MHASP Web site has information about the agency and all of its programs. In addition to our own listing of services we have a section on Getting Help which describes how someone navigates both the public and private mental health system. Information on mental health Crisis services in all Southeastern Pennsylvania counties is the first thing someone sees on our Getting Help section. There is a listing of all Philadelphia community mental health centers and other specialized mental health resources online.

In addition to information about getting help we have additional information about advocacy, a calendar with mental health events of interest, and news items.

When MHASP received funding from OMH for the Mental Health and Aging Advocacy project we decided to utilize the Internet to expand the accessibility of the program. We developed a Web site, www.MHAging.org that provides information about mental health and aging. The site's resources include information about recognizing the symptoms of mental illness, how to assess the care you receive, how to talk to your doctor, what to look for in a care facility, where to find mental health and aging services and information for caregivers. Our MHAging Web site is an effective tool to get people more involved with the mental health system and learn how to be an effective advocate.

The Parents Involved Network Web site, www.pinofpa.org has made available to the public a tremendous amount of information accumulated over the years to educate family members and help them in their advocacy efforts on behalf of their children. Traditional distribution of this material in the past reached only a modest number of people. With our Web site we have expanded our distribution and know we are reaching a much larger audience. We receive many email inquiries a week from people who have been helped by the Web site and are asking for personal help from a parent advocate.

Our most recent entry in our Internet resources is the Coping Skills for Children and Adolescents Web site, www.mhasp.org/coping. This site provides information and proven coping skills to children who are dealing with mental illness in their families. The resources are designed to help them cope effectively with the situation. Thanks to the use of reinvestment funds we were able to develop this resource that reaches many more children and adolescents than we could with only the live workshops that are offered by the project.

We invite everyone to visit our Web sites and sample the wealth of information we are providing.

I have taken the time to describe our use of the Internet and our Web resources because I feel this technology can be used to expand mental health outreach and access to people in Philadelphia. The future of information distribution is the Internet. MHASP would like the support of the Philadelphia OMH so that we could expand the information about community mental health resources we now have available to the community 24 hours a day seven days a week. We would like to work with the Free Library of Philadelphia and use the Internet access in branch libraries to make our online mental health resources accessible to every Philadelphia resident.

Plan Comments

I would like to begin our testimony by acknowledging and supporting the Philadelphia Office of Mental Health in its role as innovative leader in the delivery of mental health services. We applaud the OMH for its role in developing innovative community based mental health services that assured the successful closing of Philadelphia State Hospital and the development of an effective alternative treatment system. Philadelphia has a model community mental health system that today serves people who in the past would only have years of living in state hospital to look forward to. We are encouraged by the promise of more new services for people who will leave Norristown State Hospital to live in the community.

The issues in this year's plan that we wish to comment on are:

Housing and Residential Services

We support the city's acknowledgment of the need for housing for special needs populations that would include specialized behavior shaping residences, residences for young adults, residences for persons who are dually diagnosed (MH/DA), Progressive Demand Residences for the homeless and residential programs for the medically fragile. The lack of affordable housing for persons with serious mental illness and co-occurring conditions is a serious problem. The MHASP supports efforts to increase funding for these services and is available to work with the OMH on this issue.

Co-occurring Demonstration Project

MHASP is familiar with the need for services for people with co-occurring conditions. Our Friends Connection program has demonstrated that this population benefits from specialized services. We support the development of a 20 bed Residential Treatment Facility for Adults (RTFA) which will provide intensive services to persons with mental illness and co-occurring substance abuse issues. There is need for such a residential treatment facility is to provide integrated, co-occurring psychiatric stabilization and drug and alcohol treatment. Individuals with co-occurring conditions need specialized services and support in order to facilitate reintegration into the community. We feel that this program will help to achieve this goal.

MHASP agrees that funds are needed to develop an improved halfway house service for people with co-occurring substance abuse and mental health disorders. We support the city's plans to identify state licensed boarding homes that could qualify as a state licensed halfway house program. There is a need for upgraded services to include additional training, physical plant improvements and increased staffing patterns. Specialized on site medical services, as proposed in the plan, will improve the services provided to people living in this kind of specialized residence.

Psychiatric Rehabilitation

MHASP has s strong commitment to consumer choice and the active involvement of consumers in the rehabilitation. We are pleased with the inclusion of Psychiatric Rehabilitation services becoming an in-plan entitlement. MHASP acknowledges the need to work on maintaining the integrity of the international PSR model in Pennsylvania.

Community Services / Peer Support

The development of two additional consumer-operated drop-in center programs to be located in Northwest and South Philadelphia will continue to provided consumers with a much needed community resource. MHASP's experience with these centers demonstrates the value of this service to consumers who might otherwise avoid contact with the mental health system. Having an opportunity to enter the mental health system through a drop in center can be the perfect opportunity for some individuals.

The socialization, advocacy, creative arts, peer support groups and information and referral programs available at drop in centers are important to many consumers using the centers. MHASP supports the need for additional funding to upgrade the staffing levels of current drop-in centers.

Submitted by:
William T. Krum, Director, Division of Community Education
6/7/01