Mental Health Program Serving the Most Vulnerable Children & Adults

1. Mental Health Program Serving the Most Vulnerable Children & Adults

2. Vision • The most vulnerable children and adults, those least able to manage their mental illnesses, will have priority access to the limited resources. • Services will be individualized and driven by the client’s personal goals, strengths and needs. • Service providers will form networks of quality care and treatment that ensure continuity of care. • Continuity of care will be assured across systems and from emergency through intensive treatment to maintenance of treatment gains. • Evidence-based practices will focus limited resources on the most powerful and cost effective treatment. • Providers will be rewarded for excellent performance, and ineffective or unnecessary services will be phased out. • A statewide quality improvement system will measure clinical, economic, organizational and behavioral outcomes. • Data systems will support measures of individual child or adult outcomes and the cost and quality of treatment.

3. Client Eligibility • Florida Statutes specify clinical and financial eligibility for services and require that clients must be a member of one of the Department’s target groups, as listed below: • Community Target Populations • Children with serious emotional disturbance • Children with emotional disturbance • Children at risk of emotional disturbance • Adults with severe and persistent mental illness • Adults in mental health crisis • Adults with forensic involvement • Older adults with severe and persistent mental illness • Older adults with serious and acute episodes of mental illness. • Older adults at risk • Juvenile Incompetent to Proceed Institutional Target Populations • Adults in civil commitment • Adults in forensic commitment • Sexually Violent Predators

6. Community Mental Health • The community mental health program adheres to the following principles for the clients we serve: • Person-centered, with individualized pathways of care, that are enhanced by the person's and family's natural supports and strengths. • Community-based, with supports and services located in or strongly linked to the community, in the least restrictive setting supportive of the person's safety and treatment needs. • Results-oriented, with quality care leading to improved outcomes for the person and family • These principles are carried out through services provided to almost 200,000 adults and children per year by over 200 private providers. • Total Number Served YTD April 2001 • ChildrenAdults • SED 34,578 SPMI 58,695 • ED 17,784 Crisis 43,945 • At-Risk 2,316 Community Forensic 1,300 • Total Children: 54,678 Total Adults: 103,940

7. State Mental Health Facilities • Persons admitted for services in a state facility must meet the criteria contained in either Chapter 394, Florida Statutes (civil), or Chapter 916, Florida Statutes (forensic). Individuals admitted under the civil statute have been determined to present substantial risk in the community due to dangerousness to themselves or others or inability to care for themselves due to a major mental illness. Individuals committed under the forensic statute have been adjudicated, through the judicial process, incompetent to proceed or not guilty by reason of insanity. There are six mental health treatment facilities operated by the state and one that is operated under contract with a private provider. The type and current capacity of each of these facilities is depicted in the chart below: • Facility Name / Location Civil Beds Forensic Beds • Florida State Hospital 486 474 • G. Pierce Wood Memorial Hospital 266 • Northeast Florida State Hospital 543 • South Florida State Hospital (Atlantic Shores) 350 • North Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center 216 • South Florida Evaluation and Treatment Center 200 • West Florida Community Care Center 80 • Total Beds 1841 860

8. Major current initiatives System of care re-design. The current service delivery system suffers from lack of services – both acute care and psychological services and family supports – and is made up of several separate components of care that are not well integrated. We have the knowledge base to implement well-defined management of services, provide for quality, effectiveness and efficiency, and integrate services with other systems that affect our client’s lives. We plan to select two areas of the state to serve as learning sites to develop and implement a new redesign of the system of care, addressing both the need for additional services and the techniques needed to ensure continuity of care. Integration of children’s mental health services for families served by Family Safety. Children entering the care of the Department are at very high risk of emotional and behavioral problems, due to the abuse they have experienced and the pain of removal from their families. We need to ensure they receive professional assessment and timely, quality treatment at levels appropriate to the severity of their conditions. We are re-designing our Children’s Mental Health system of care to ensure better, more consistent access to services within the timeframes set by statutes and the courts. Successful closure of G. Pierce Wood State Hospital. The 2000 Legislature mandated closure of G. Pierce Wood by April 1, 2002. The Department has worked with stakeholders on a three-pronged planning process for the closure: 1) re-alignment of the hospital catchment areas; 2) development of services in the community to ensure persons transferred from the hospital will be placed in a safe environment with needed services in place; and 3) timely and responsible actions for actual closure of the facility, including a phase-down plan for the staff, consumers, and the facility.