March 28, 2008

To: All DHS employees

From: Bruce Goldberg, M.D., director

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"If you always think what you always thought, then you always get what you always got."
~Anonymous (quote graciously provided by Susan Harms)

My past few messages have focused on health and the importance of everyone being able to get the health care they need. This week, please indulge me as I continue with that general theme, but with a focus on children's mental health. More importantly, I want to highlight some of the successes at providing better mental care for Oregon's children that we are seeing as a result of the efforts of our Addictions and Mental Health Division in partnership with stakeholder groups, local communities, community mental health organizations and hundreds of mental health professionals.
The Children's System Change Initiative (CSCI) began after the 2003 Oregon Legislature directed the state to increase the availability and quality of children's mental health care. We are now seeing the good results of this work.

A report from the National Center for Children in Poverty recently praised us for significant improvements in Oregon's children's mental health treatment system. More importantly, more children are enrolled in mental health treatment programs, and families report higher satisfaction with the new system.

Key to this effort has been putting systems in place within each community to ensure children who need mental health services are able to receive them early and near where they live. At the same time, this initiative has included a greater focus on monitoring results so that DHS and our partners are able to continually expand the use of evidence-based practices, which in turn increases the quality of care our children receive.

There is still a lot of work that needs to be done to enhance the CSCI and make it better. But we are beginning to see the successes or our efforts, and the data tell us that this initiative is working.

And the good work continues.

New services and outreach methods are being developed to help strengthen families, catch emerging problems early and prevent them from worsening. Coordination among the state's many mental health providers has increased, leading to easier and more consistent access to services. And more children are able to remain at home while getting treatment, stay in school, and stay out of trouble.

This is exactly the sort of prevention and intervention that can reduce problems later in life for these children, and can save taxpayers the cost of later, more expensive treatment.

In addition, the Governor's Statewide Children's Wraparound Initiative to improve children's mental health care is moving forward. This initiative is focusing on creating new and better models for service delivery that transcend programs, agencies and systems. It creates an opportunity to be accountable for shared, demonstrable outcomes to improve the lives of children and families, and like the CSCI, it has the potential to become a model for other state and local health and human service delivery efforts.

Both the Children's System Change Initiative and the Wraparound Initiative set a standard for the improvements we want to make throughout the state's mental health treatment system for individuals of all ages and resources. As we seek to create greater use of community-based care, increase our focus on prevention and intervention, improve the use of evidence-based practices, and reduce program delivery costs, we can look to these initiatives and know that all of these goals can be achieved.

We've made great strides in improving mental health treatment for children. There is much, much more to do so that everyone in Oregon is able to get the mental health care they need. But we have some real successes that serve as a foundation to build and improve upon.

My thanks to everyone who is making this progress possible.

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To provide feedback email: DHS.Directorsoffice@state.or.us

This message is intended for all department employees. Please read it electronically, if possible. Managers and supervisors are asked to share the message each week with employees who do not have email access.