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March 29, 2018

Advancing Public Policies for People with Mental Illness, Chemical Dependency or Developmental Disabilities   

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Francine Sinkoff, Editor
fs@clmhd.org
N.Y. advocates push for school mental health center

Rikers Doesn't Put Teens in Solitary. Other New York Jails Do.

Drug Detox in Saranac Lake Boosted by New York State Grants

NYS OASAS Announces Grand Opening of New Recovery Community and Outreach Center in Syracuse and Re-opening of Recovery Community and Outreach Center in Rochester

Rensselaer County, federal prosecutor partner to combat opioid epidemic

Lawmakers Hold Off Committing To Juvenile Detention Facility - St. Lawrence County

Albany Lauds Tompkins County Suicide Prevention Steps

Sheriff, doctor outline opioid problems in Wayne County

Coalition unveils 'Seneca Strong' campaign tackling suicide prevention

Nassau DA forms task force for safe schools and communities

CHESS Health Partners with Staten Island Performing Provider System and Staten Island Borough President James Oddo to Address Substance Abuse Epidemic

Proposal To Cut Inwood Psychiatric Unit Worries Community - NYC








Call for Presentations: 2018 NYS Suicide Prevention Conference

The 2018 NYS Suicide Prevention Conference: New Yorkers Advancing Suicide Prevention in Healthcare, Schools & Communities will be held Sept 20-21st in Albany. The conference strives to showcase work being done across the state in a variety of settings, including community, schools, clinical, and academic. We encourage you and your organization to apply to present in a concurrent or poster session by responding to this Call for Presentations. 

Interventions, Programs and Research must align with the three pillars of the NYS Suicide Prevention Plan:
  1. Prevention in Health and Behavior Healthcare Settings;
  2. Prevention across the Lifespan in Communities; and
  3. Surveillance and Data to Inform Suicide Prevention. 

Deadline for Submission: May 1, 2018
For further information regarding the conference, visit: www.nyssuicidepreventionconference.org
UPCOMING TRAININGS

Responding to the 2018 Second Chance Act Comprehensive Community-Based Adult Reentry Grant Program Solicitation
April 4, 2 - 3:30 pm, CSG Justice Center

Making Physical Health & Well-Being Matter for Transition-Age Youth
April 5, 2 - 3 pm, National Council for Behavioral Health

Beyond Cost and Utilization: Rethinking Evaluation Strategies for Complex Care Programs
April 9, 2 - 3:30 pm, Center for Health Care Strategies

State Strategies for Supporting Sustainable Investments in Social Interventions
April 9, 2 - 3 pm, Manatt

Using PSYCKES for Clinicians
April 10, 1 - 2:30 pm, NYSOMH

Why True Integration Requires a Primary Focus on Behavioral Health
April 11, 1 - 2 pm, Behavioral Healthcare Executive

Saving Lives: What You Can Do to Help Reduce Tobacco Use in Community Mental Health Settings
April 11, 2 - 3:30 pm

America's Multidimensional Opioid Crisis: Status, Solutions and Next Steps
April 12, 12 - 1:30 pm, Manatt

Certified Community Behavioral Health Centers: A New Approach To Providing Mental Health & Addiction Services
April 16, 12 - 1 pm, PsychU

Getting There from Here: Innovative strategies for addressing transportation needs of people with behavioral health conditions
April 18, 12 - 1 pm

Enable Access to Client-Level Data in PSYCKES
April 19, 3 - 4 pm, NYSOMH

Using PSYCKES Recipient Search
April 24, 11 am - 12 pm, NYSOMH

April 26, 2 - 3:15 pm, NACo

 
CALENDAR OF EVENTS

APRIL 2018

Mental Hygiene Planning Committee Meeting
April 3: 1 - 2:30 pm, GTM

Officers, Chairs & Regional Reps Call
April 4: 8 am

Children & Families Committee Meeting
April 17: 11:30 am - 1 pm, GTM

Directors/Executive Committee Meeting
April 18: 9:30 am - 12:30 pm, GTM

CLMHD Spring Full Membership Meeting
April 30 - May 1, Saratoga Springs

MAY 2018

Children & Families Committee Meeting
May 15: 11:30 am - 1 pm, GTM

Mental Hygiene Planning Committee Meeting
May 15: 1 - 2:30 pm, GTM

Developmental Disabilities Committee Meeting 
May 17: 1 - 2:30 pm, GTM

Agency Meeting: NYS OASAS
May 23: 10 am - 12 pm
1450 Western Ave., Albany

Agency Meeting: NYS OMH
May 23: 1 - 3 pm
44 Holland Ave., Albany

Office Closed: Memorial Day
May 28

Contact CLMHD for all Call In and Go To Meeting information, 518.462.9422 
U.S. News and Aetna Foundation Release Inaugural Healthiest Communities Rankings

U.S. News & World Report, the global authority in rankings and civic journalism, in collaboration with the Aetna Foundation, the independent charitable and philanthropic arm of Aetna, today announced the inaugural  Healthiest Communities  rankings . The new report evaluated nearly 3,000 communities nationwide across 10 categories, from education and population health to infrastructure and economy. In addition to assessing which communities offer their citizens the greatest opportunity to live a productive, healthy life, the rankings offer insight into the best approaches for improving public health that can be shared and implemented across the country.

In addition to an overall  ranking  of the top 500 communities, four peer groupings were developed based on counties' urban-rural status as tied to population density and the robustness of their economies. The peer groups assure fair comparisons between communities and are categorized by: urban high-performing, urban up-and-coming, rural high-performing and rural up-and-coming. An Honor Roll was also developed that highlights 36 top-performing communities in each peer group from the nine U.S. Census regions. Read more here.
Congress Approves FY18 Funding Levels for Criminal Justice Programs

Last week, the U.S. Congress approved the $1.3 trillion Fiscal Year 2018 Omnibus Appropriations bill that would set government funding through Sep. 30, 2018. The bill provides $30.3 billion for the Department of Justice (DOJ) and includes $2.9 billion for various state and local law enforcement assistance grant programs.

The bill increases funding for the Second Chance Act, from $68 million in FY17 to $85 million in FY18. The Second Chance Act authorizes federal grants for vital programs and systems reform aimed at improving the reentry process and reducing recidivism. Since 2009, more than 840 Second Chance grants have been awarded to government agencies and nonprofit organizations from 49 states for reentry programs that have served more than 166,000 adults and juveniles. 

Additionally, the bill provides $25 million for the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI), which helps state and local governments conduct comprehensive, data-driven analyses of their criminal justice systems and adopt evidence-based policies designed to reduce corrections spending and increase public safety. Read more here.
State Seeks New Ideas to Address Social Health Determinants

The state is casting a wide net as it searches for new technology solutions and other innovative proposals to address the social determinants of health for Medicaid enrollees, according to a statement last week from the Health Department.  The department said it soon will release a formal request for information from community-based organizations "across New York, throughout the country and from entities around the world."

The proposals, due June 1, will be evaluated by a team of experts and judged on scalability, return on investment and other factors, the department said, adding that winners will receive "special recognition." There was no mention of monetary awards in the emailed statement.

The state is aiming to gather more strategies for DSRIP networks, managed care organizations, and health care providers to succeed under value-based contracts.

"Performing provider systems are in a vital performance phase, and all providers and managed care organizations are actively moving into value-based payment arrangements," the Health Department said. "It is important to note that New York is the only state in the nation that requires advanced value-based payment contractors to identify a social determinant of health relevant to the population they serve and contract with a community-based organization to address that need." 

-Crain's Health Pulse 3.23.18
Healing Drug Injection Wounds Can Help Get Care Closer To Patients

Sheila Dhand treats a lot of people who might not step foot in a health clinic or hospital - until an emergency.

"People don't want to show just anybody their wound," Dhand says. "A lot of time when talking about wounds, we're talking about drug use. And those things are so taboo."

Dhand is a wound care nurse with Prevention Point, a nonprofit organization that provides addiction, health and harm reduction services in Philadelphia. Her job involves going out in a mobile-wound-care-van where she tends to skin and soft-tissue infections that often result from injecting drugs.

She, and others, worry such wounds  are on the rise as the opioid epidemic escalates, so the mobile unit is in the process of expanding through a grant from Philadelphia's Office of Addiction Services.
This spring, it will travel to more places, more often, in hopes of reaching more people who might not otherwise get care. Read more here.

Presentations From 2017 HHS Federal Partners Integrated Care Meeting

Now available, presentations from the U.S Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) 2017 virtual meeting, "State of the Art: Research, Models, Promising Practices, and Sustaining Integrated Care." National experts from HHS and federal grantees spoke about best practices in primary and behavioral care integration, including presentations on key topics such as: 
  • Models of integrated care
  • Key findings from the research community
  • Examples of diverse grantee practices regarding service delivery
  • Resources to support and build integrated systems of care
Click here to watch the presentations.
Omissions On Death Certificates Lead To Undercounting Of Opioid Overdoses

In a refrigerator in the coroner's office in Marion County, Ind., rows of vials await testing. They contain blood, urine and vitreous, the fluid collected from inside a human eye.

In overdose cases, the fluids may contain clues for investigators.

"We send that off to a toxicology lab to be tested for what we call drugs of abuse," said Alfie Ballew, deputy coroner. The results often include drugs such as cocaine, heroin, fentanyl or prescription pharmaceuticals.
After testing, coroners typically write the drugs involved in an overdose on the death certificate - but not always.

Standards for how to investigate and report on overdoses vary widely across states and counties. As a result, opioid overdose deaths aren't always captured in the data reported to the federal government. The country is undercounting opioid-related overdoses by 20 to 35 percent, according to  study
published in February in the  journal 
Addiction. Read more here.
Is It Time to Stop Saying 'the Safety Net'?

For decades, politicians, the media and the public have used a simple phrase to describe government programs that help people afford necessities like food, housing and health care: "the safety net." Now, three national groups that represent public agencies and nonprofits that administer those benefit programs say it's time to retire the phrase.

"For a lot of people, 'safety net' can feel like that deeper end of the system that is more costly and that people stay on for a long period of time. That's really not the case," says Tracy Wareing Evans, president and CEO of the American Public Human Services Association, which stopped using the term several years ago.

Moving away from the phrase is part of a larger push "to show how health and human services, if it's delivered effectively, are supposed to work on the ground," she says.
It turns out a lot of people don't know the full scope of who "human services" actually helps. Read more here.
The Conference of Local Mental Hygiene Directors advances public policies and awareness for people with mental illness, chemical dependency and developmental disabilities.  We are a statewide membership organization that consists of the Commissioner/ Director of each of the state's 57 county mental hygiene departments and the mental hygiene department of the City of New York.

Affiliated