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CLMHD and OMH Collaborate for C-SPOA Early Access Event
The Conference, together with the NYS Office of Mental Health, hosted a C-SPOA Early Access Event on December 2-3, 2024, at the Saratoga Hilton in Saratoga Springs, NY. Designed as a prelude to the NYS Coalition for Children’s Behavioral Health Conference, this event brought together C-SPOAs from across the state to network, engage with state partners, and explore best practices for supporting children and families.
Children’s Single Point of Access (C-SPOA) Coordinators are county-based professionals embedded within Local Government Units (LGUs). They act as a centralized referral system for children and youth with serious emotional disturbances, ensuring access to intensive mental health services that help them remain at home or within their communities. C-SPOA Coordinators provide case consultation, system navigation, and referral and linkage to mental health supports and services. Their role is critical in advancing a strong system of care framework statewide.
The sessions emphasized the evolution of the C-SPOA and its integration within the System of Care (SOC) framework, fostering collaboration and encouraging feedback on key initiatives. Participants left energized and well-prepared to improve service delivery in their counties.
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OMH Launches New Behavioral Health Provider Training Page
The New York State Office of Mental Health is pleased to announce the launch of a dedicated webpage designed to support training initiatives for behavioral health providers across New York State. This webpage serves as a centralized resource, offering access to a variety of training opportunities, materials, and tools to enhance practices and better serve individuals in need.
This training webpage features:
- Live or self-study sessions tailored to the behavioral health field.
- Resources on various topics such as trauma-informed care, crisis intervention, and suicide prevention.
- Opportunities for continuing education credits.
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Shining a Light on Bereavement and Grief: SAMHSA Recognizes National Grief Awareness Week
Grief, in many ways, is a universal experience. In the United States alone, millions of people experience grief and bereavement each year due to a variety of reasons, including the loss of loved ones or experiencing a traumatic event, illness, disaster, or violence. The number of individuals reporting grief and bereavement has increased in recent years, especially considering the COVID-19 pandemic, overdose epidemic, and elevated rates of suicide. Grief also is a complex and deeply personal experience that can impact both mental and physical health – and nobody processes it in the same way. This week is National Grief Awareness Week and SAMHSA desires to elevate this universally important topic of national significance. National Grief Awareness week is a time to acknowledge everyone who has experienced loss, and to help raise awareness about grief nationwide. Read more here.
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What’s Behind the Remarkable Drop in U.S. Overdose Deaths
After years of relentless rises in overdose deaths, the United States has seen a remarkable reversal. For seven straight months, according to federal data, drug fatalities have been declining. Expanded treatment, prevention and education efforts are playing a role, but drug policy experts believe there is another, surprising reason: changes in the drug supply itself, which are, in turn, influencing how people are using drugs. The fentanyl on the street is starting to become weaker. Anne Milgram, who heads the Drug Enforcement Administration, announced last week that for the first time since 2021, the agency was seeing a decline in fentanyl potency, a development she attributed to the government’s crackdown on Mexican cartels and international supply chains. Last year, seven out of 10 counterfeit pills tested in D.E.A. labs contained a life-threatening amount of fentanyl, she said, but that number has dropped to five out of 10. Read more here.
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How One Library Is Filling the Gaps in Homeless Services
Public libraries are storehouses of knowledge, but they are also places of refuge. They offer relief from extreme heat, digital access for people who need it, help with school assignments and shelter in disasters. They can also function as safe spaces for unhoused people stressed out by street life, a role that many libraries across the country are working to embrace. Earlier this year, dozens of library directors from around the U.S. met in Los Angeles for a CEO Roundtable hosted by the Urban Libraries Council (ULC) and the L.A. city and county libraries. Over three days, they discussed the unique role libraries can play in filling gaps in services for the unhoused and strategies that could improve library-based programs. Read more here.
Related: L.A. County Leaders Seek to Revamp Expensive Approach to Homelessness
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‘Turbulence’ on the Way for Providers, Payers Post-Parity Ruling
Lack of behavioral health parity has extreme consequences for patients. The inability to find in-network care for these services requires patients without the means to pay for health care out of pocket to forgo care or make “really tough life decisions.” “We’ve [heard] stories of members having to lose their homes because they have to choose to pay for a child to be able to be in residential care, and that is so expensive they can’t afford their rent or can’t afford their mortgage,” Sean Bell, general manager of new ventures at mental health provider Spring Health said at Behavioral Health Business’ INVEST event. “This is real.” New York City-based Spring Health is a B2B virtual mental health provider that offers a variety of digital tools, including coaching, therapy and meditation. Spring has raised a total of $466.5 million, including a $100 million Series E round in July 2024. Its customers include Adobe, Bumble, Delta, Highmark Health and Guardian. Read more here.
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Issue Brief: Co-Occurring Mental Health and Substance Use
This Issue Brief offers valuable information to State Mental Health Authorities (SMHA) about co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders (COD). The document highlights the commonality of CODs and negative outcomes in the absence of evidence-based integrated care. It also provides an overview of treatment barriers and potential solutions, and the effectiveness of integrated care.
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New York State Department of Health Recognizes International Day of Persons With Disabilities
The New York State Department of Health recognizes International Day of Persons with Disabilities, observed December 3, and promotes full and meaningful inclusion of people with disabilities in every aspect of daily living. "International Day of Persons with Disabilities is an important day that we recognize by highlighting the significance of advocacy, independence, respect and collaboration with people with disabilities," State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said. "The State Health Department remains committed to achieving health equity and overcoming health disparities by ensuring that individuals with disabilities have access to quality health care, and essential services and supports." Read more here.
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Penalized for Their Prescriptions: Parents Using Legal Addiction Medications Face Ongoing Discrimination in the Child Welfare System
As this country battles yet another drug epidemic, medical authorities and the federal government continue to promote “medication-assisted treatments” like methadone as the most-effective frontline defense against the ravages of opioid addiction. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the bedrock Americans with Disabilities Act protect these patients from being discriminated against for their prescriptions. Yet too often, parents managing addiction under doctor’s orders with methadone or similar medications are set up for failure in the nation’s foster care courts. Problems exist to some extent across the country, according to recent lawsuits, federal investigations and interviews with more than a dozen court officials, parents, advocates and disability rights activists. Read more here.
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America’s Hidden Racial Divide: A Mysterious Gap in Psychosis Rates
Earl Miller’s favorite book is “The Old Man and the Sea.” Growing up, whenever he moved, he made sure to pack a copy of Hemingway’s novella in one of his two black plastic trash bags. One bag held the books he had stolen along the way; the other, his few clothes. His homes, from the time he was 12, were psychiatric wards, residential programs and the foster homes of white parents who quickly decided they couldn’t handle a heavyset, badly troubled Black kid. For three months, when Miller was 22, he lived under the wooden bench where we now sat, facing a small lake in a park in Springfield, Mass., his hometown. As a growing body of research reveals, Black people in the United States suffer the hallucinations and delusions of psychosis — the voices that seem to emanate from outside a person’s head, the visions, the paranoias, the breaks with common reality — at a rate roughly twice that of white people. In Europe, racial disparities regarding psychosis are yet wider. Even after researchers control for socioeconomic factors and address issues of diagnosis, the alarming racial gaps remain. Read more here.
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UPCOMING EVENTS & TRAININGS
Effective Models to Address Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders: Strategies for Successful and Equitable Abatement Using Opioid Settlement Dollars
December 5, 1 - 3:30 pm, NASEM
Inequities in Black People Accessing and Receiving Substance Use Treatment
December 5, 2 - 3 pm, PCSS
Preparing States I/DD Systems for Implementation of the Medicaid Access Final Rule
December 5, 2 - 3 pm, Manatt Health
Breaking Mental Health Stigma in the NYC Hispanic/Latino Community
December 5, 2 - 2:25 pm, BHN
Breaking Down Barriers with The SUNY Downstate STAR Program’s “Stop Mental Health Stigma” Campaign
December 9, 2 - 2:40 pm, BHN
Health Equity and Intersectionality (Rural Communities)
December 10, 10 am - 12 pm, NCROTAC
Health and Housing Partnerships to Support Individuals Living with or at-risk for HIV/AIDS
December 10, 2 - 3:30 pm, Corporation for Supportive Housing
Care and Concern Interventions to Address Substance Use and Mental Health in Rural Communities
December 10, 2 - 4 pm, NCROTAC
Mental Health Apps, ChatBots, and Digital Therapy for Kids: What You Need to Know
December 11, 12 - 1 pm, School Mental Health Resource & Training Center
Health Care Workforce Innovation: Solutions to the Staffing Crisis
December 11, 12 - 2 pm, NEJM Catalyst
Homelessness and Access to Care: Best Practices for Health Centers
December 11, 1 - 2 pm, Corporation for Supportive Housing
United Way of the Dutchess-Orange Region – Empowering Communities through Inclusion and Mental Health Anti-Stigma Efforts
December 11, 2 - 2:25, BHN
Partnering with Community Colleges to Grow and Strengthen the Community Responder Workforce
December 12, 2 - 3:30 pm, CSG Justice Center
Addressing Behavioral Health Crisis in Aging Adults: Reducing Stigma and Enhancing Care
December 12, 2:30 - 4 pm, SAMHSA
Improving Health and Reducing Homelessness through Cross-Sector Partnerships: Insights from California
December 12, 2:30 - 4 pm, CHCS
Cognitive Enhancement - What the Research Shows
December 12, 4 - 5:30 pm, NAMI
Yates INSYGHT – Combating Mental Health Stigma in a Rural Community
December 14, 2 - 2:40 pm, BHN
Director’s Innovation Speaker Series: Youth Suicidal Behaviors: Where Do We Go from Here?
December 16, 2 - 3 pm, NIMH
Overdose Safety Planning in Rural Communities
December 16, 2 - 4 pm, NCROTAC
The Caring Connection: Trauma-Informed Care and Recovery Planning (in Rural Settings)
December 17, 9:30 - 11:30 am, NCROTAC
Workforce Solutions Jam: Reducing Barriers to Licensure to Expand and Diversify the Behavioral Health Workforce
December 17, 1 - 2 pm, National Council for Mental Wellbeing
Family Treatment Courts: An Evidence-Based Approach to Family-Centered Care
December 17, 1 - 3 pm, NCSACW
Screenings and Assessments for Substance Use Disorders to Support Successful Reentry
December 17, 1:30 - 3 pm, SAMHSA's GAINS Center
Substance Use and the Brain
December 17, 3:30 - 5 pm, COSSUP
Addressing Disparities through School-Based Health Centers
December 18, 10 - 11 am, NY Health Foundation
Transforming Child & Family Services With Innovation
December 18, 1 - 2 pm, Netsmart
DHS Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships: CP3 101
December 18, 3 - 4 pm, US Department of Homeland Security
Supporting Children of Incarcerated Parents: Addressing School-Based Bias and Stigma
January 8, 3 - 4 pm, CSG Justice Center
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CLMHD CALENDAR
DECEMBER
LGU Clinic Operators Call
December 10: 10 - 11:30 am
Addiction Services & Supports (ASR) Committee Meeting
December 12: 11 am - 12 pm
Developmental Disabilities Committee Meeting
December 12: 1 - 2:30 pm
Mental Health Committee Meeting
December 12: 3 - 4 pm
Children & Families Committee Meeting
December 17: 11:30 am - 1 pm
Membership Call
December 18: 9 - 10:30 am
Mental Hygiene Planning Committee Meeting
December 19: 1 - 3 pm
CLMHD Office Closed - Christmas
December 25
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