Mental health initiative succeeds

Eight years ago, voters approved Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act, to expand mental health services in California.

Since that time, what began as a method of providing an all-inclusive treatment system is now turning out to be its hallmark: full service partnerships. According to a new study by the University of California at Los Angeles, partnerships are resulting in improved mental health systems at lower overall costs. The UCLA Center for Healthier Children, Families and Communities report concludes that "overall, these results suggest a very positive treatment outcome and return on investment, for FSP clients."

Partnerships provide "whatever it takes" to a person with severe mental illness. Maybe it's housing, medical or mental health treatment; it might be medication management, job training or life skills. When that person begins to stabilize, money is saved in other areas: incarceration, psychiatric hospitalizations, emergency room visits and homelessness.

The most recent figure shows that it costs about $20,000 a year to provide partnership services to an individual; that's $4,000 less than it cost per person during the previous year. And thousands of people are being served: In that same two-year period, 21,000 people were newly enrolled in FSPs.

Two-thirds of the money for FSPs comes from Proposition 63. The federal government funds more than a quarter of the FSP costs.

It's an investment that is paying off for those who live with severe mental illness; for their families and the communities in which they live, mental health services in California are making a difference, just as Proposition 63 — and voters — intended.

LARRY POASTER

chairman, Mental Health Services Oversight and Accountability Commission

Sacramento