Those of you in Licensing have heard me talk about the difference between compliance and enforcement more than once, but it's been awhile since I've written about the subject. Some people are confused about the distinction I always make between compliance and enforcement. They are 2 very different things. Compliance (as it relates to our licensees) [...]
Arizona Smokers' Helpline, the University of Arizona, Mel and Enid Zuckerman, and the College of Public Health will present a free CME conference "Evidence-based Interventions for Tobacco Cessation in Populations with Mental Illness Challenges," Saturday, Oct. 15, 2011, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. to behavioral health providers. The conference will take place at the [...]
Last week the Teen Lifeline rolled out its new public service announcement (PSA) featuring Bridget Pettis from the Phoenix Mercury. Teens attending rallies at Desert Ridge and Tempe Marketplace, as well as 1,500 middle school aged youth attending a bullying prevention event with the Mercury at US Airways were able to view the PSA. This PSA was [...]
For the past 16 months, our folks in the Division of Behavioral health and our Bureau of Tobacco and Chronic Disease and ASHline have been working to train clinical behavioral health staff in Maricopa and Pima Counties on how to get folks into smoking cessation (quit) services. The overall goal of this collaboration was to establish [...]
Our Behavioral Health team has completed the draft of our ($27M) 2012-2013 Joint Block Grant Application for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Services. This year SAMHSA streamlined the application process to allow States to apply for grant funds under one combined application and has moved away from a standardized reporting template, allowing the [...]
We've had to make lots of difficult decisions in response to the ongoing funding shortfalls in our behavioral health system (as well as everywhere in state government). Many decisions (while painful in the short term) have been necessary to maintain long term system stability as Arizona continues to emerge from this unprecedented fiscal crisis. While [...]
A new report is out that provides a state-by-state comparison of a wide range of behavioral health issues. Every state has to deal with some significant challenges with mental illness and substance abuse. For example, among people 12 and older, Alaska’s current illicit drug use rate more than double that in Iowa (13% versus 5%), [...]
One of our primary objectives over the last couple of years in behavioral health has been to shift the focus of our performance measures away from process and procedures toward actual outcomes. In other words, we don’t want to measure our success on whether someone’s paperwork is right, but on whether the services we provide [...]
It’s time to step up to the plate if you’re interested in providing clear and concise information about how best to integrate primary and acute healthcare with behavioral health care for folks with serious mental illnesses in Arizona. One of our top priorities in behavioral health over the coming years will be to better integrate [...]
Our behavioral health coalition completed and published our brand-new Raise Your Voice! Report... a product of our behavioral health focus groups with peers and family members in late 2010. We’re most proud of the fact that the entire process—from beginning to end—had the full participation or peers and family members (from the Arizona Peer and Family Coalition) in planning, organizing, leading [...]
