Welcome back (after a summer break) to our monthly speaker meeting (generally the fourth Wednesday of the month).
Happy August and Welcome Back! Our next speaker meeting is this Wednesday, 1:30 on Zoom.
This month topic is Mental Health and Behavioral Health.
We'll hear speaker and their perspectives and experience with public policies and programs.
Note this is virtual, NOT hybrid/in-person despite some rumors.
Speakers:
- GP Member Glenn Turner, of East Bay Family Advocates for the Seriously Mentally Ill and the Berkeley Behavioral Health Commission. She bring her family experience and political education since grappling with her adult daughters illness and unsuccessful treatment.
CONTEXT and Definitions
According to the World Health Organization, Mental health is a state of mental well-being that enables people to cope with the stresses of life, realize their abilities, learn well and work well, and contribute to their community. It has intrinsic and instrumental value and is integral to our well-being.
Behavioral Health has become an umbrella term describing systems of traditional mental health care with substance abuse treatment, lifestyle habits, and daily actions that affect overall physical and mental well-being.
- Mental Health: Focuses strictly on emotional, psychological, and cognitive well-being.
- Behavioral Health: A wider field that includes mental health alongside habits, actions, and substance use. Including Addiction: It explicitly groups mental wellness together with substance use and addictive disorders under one care system.
- Managed Care: Health insurance companies and clinics popularized the term to focus on observable, measurable behavior changes and integrated treatments.
- Reducing Stigma: Shifting language away from clinical "mental illness" can sometimes feel less intimidating or more approachable for patients.
- Glenn described her daughter’s long-term schizophrenia, repeated 5150 holds, homelessness, incarceration, and death in 2018. She argued that the shortage of hospital beds, licensed housing, crisis services, and community programs leaves families without viable options.
- Berkeley’s behavioral-health system was described as under-resourced, with a hiring freeze, a discontinued specialized care unit, and uncertainty about crisis vans and community-based programs. Participants also discussed the Alameda County DOJ report and litigation concerning referrals to Santa Rita and John George rather than community alternatives.
- Participants emphasized the value of crisis-intervention-trained police, peer support, early treatment for first-episode psychosis, family involvement, culturally competent care, and distinguishing hospitalization from incarceration.
Priorities And Questions
- FASMI supports more hospital beds, licensed housing, first-episode psychosis treatment, family participation in care, and a possible statewide right to treatment.
- Participants discussed Medicaid and Medi-Cal access after age 26, eating-disorder treatment, cognitive behavioral therapy, trauma treatment, and peer certification programs that may be losing funding.
- How can Berkeley and Alameda County coordinate fragmented services, preserve community programs, and create accountable, humane crisis responses despite funding cuts?
- Glenn explained that FASMI includes relatives of people with serious mental illness.
- She shared her daughter’s history of schizophrenia, involuntary holds, housing instability, incarceration, and death.
- The discussion distinguished serious mental illness from grief, anxiety, addiction, PTSD, and other conditions across the mental-health spectrum.
Berkeley And County Services
- Participants described hiring freezes, reduced staffing, discontinued crisis-response capacity, loss of drop-in and wellness programs, and inadequate housing and hospital capacity.
- Carol discussed the Alameda County DOJ report, the settlement agreement, CareBridge, crisis residential services, peer respite, and crisis-intervention training.
- Maria emphasized coordination, continuity of care, accountability, and meeting people where they are.
Care Court And SB 28
- Care Court was characterized as voluntary and potentially helpful for a limited group, but insufficient for people unable to recognize or manage their illness.
- Participants debated autonomy, involuntary treatment, hospitalization, conservatorship, family participation, and the danger of criminalizing disability.
Peer And Community Support
- Participants discussed peer counselors, culturally competent services, early intervention, cognitive behavioral therapy, trauma treatment, and NAMI support.
- Crystal and Arlene described the history and continuing fragility of consumer-led programs, including youth and family peer services.
- The meeting closed with concern about funding cuts and a call for stronger collaboration among advocacy and service organizations.
