Heidi Beagley
General Psychology Fall 2015
Professor Ingle
On The Edge: Mental Health in Utah
found this documentary to be difficult to watch, it starts out with a poignant story about a boy, Davi, who wants to stop at a lookout point on a family vacation and runs to his death. Sherri Whittwer paints this picture to help illustrate how families can lose hold of their members that are struggling with mental illness, but also to make it more impactful when she lets us know that with treatment there is hope. She paints the picture of how mental illness effects every part of our society.
The next story we are introduced to is the tale of Derek who struggles with Bipolar disorder and the struggle the family has had getting treatment for him. The film outlines the ridiculous puzzle of playing the treatment game, the way that people can get lost trying to navigate the twists and turns of treatment, visits and medication. “If you’re poor you get it for free, if you’re rich you can afford it and if you’re middle class those door are just not open to you. First of all you can’t afford it and second of all because your income you don’t qualify for it. So it’s a very, very difficult thing.” In this case Derek only found care when he got in trouble with the law. 40% of adults with a chronic or severe mental disorder will end up in prison. The film claims that this started with the best of intentions when deinstitutionalization happened, the intentions are debatable, and my thought is that it was an utter disregard for people who really needed help. Liz Felt clearly illustrates the ridiculous statistic of having more mentally ill people in prison than in treatment centers, what a terrible consequence of cutting funding for mental health.
The conversation then turns to the cost of medicine and how waiting for those medications and the lower cost and availability of other, illegal options makes people turn to a life of crime. The stories of the people not being diagnosed with these disorders until they end up in jail is shocking to me, but it probably shouldn’t be. I truly appreciate the way that Liz Felt is trying to break the stigma of mental illness so that people are less ashamed to get the help they need. Chuck Diviney discussed the return rate of the individuals leaving jail and returning because they don’t have the ongoing treatment. Luckily, Utah is working to combat this.
Utah has a team that actually tracks people who are in the mental health system, CIT. This team will check in with mentally ill people who may be homeless and try to get them to go in for hospital visits or to go stay at the shelter. Only 12% of Utah’s officers are certified in this program. I like how they are focusing on getting these people in touch with the JDOT team, Jail Diversion Outreach. JDOT really seems to be effective because it is a blanket approach to treating mental healthcare. The case managers have a 10 to 1 ratio and they can see each client every day if needed. JDOT has lowered bookings from 21 to .3 per client. The downside of JDOT is that it is very limited and only serves 60 people. The client they talk about is Rick Peary and they touch on the fact that he has been in jail 10 times and hospitalized 7 times. I have to imagine that the cost of JDOT is less than those multiple prison stays and hospitalizations. JDOT currently focuses only on the toughest cases, but I hope that it is able to expand soon.
Sim Gill really got to the heart of the problem when he said that if we are going to keep people out of jail, we have to believe that there is someone worth saving there in the first place. I do think that the stigma is still strong with mental illness and it's a problem that society would rather ignore than fix. The Mental Health Court seems like a great team work approach to helping people with mental illness and are in trouble with the law. I really liked how Sam said that they have to change their definition of success, he's taking about Serena's case, someone who has relapses but those relapses are becoming less frequent and less severe. At this point Sim reaffirms my earlier thought that the fewer relapses and incarcerations end up saving money in the long run. The fact that the funding for mental illness is so precarious is sad and the fact that prevention is the first thing to be cut is just a mystery to me. How do we as a society not see the value in this?
It is our job as a society to come together and see the value in mental health treatment, just as the opening scenes made us realize this is a societal issue, not an individual one. It is within our power to help those within our community who struggle succeed instead. Utah seems to be ahead of the game, but even though we are ahead of the game and have some great programs in place they need to be readily available to everyone who needs them, not just the poor or the rich.
I feel that this whole documentary speaks to the reason that we have Psychology as a course option, we are learning how we can help better our society through better mental health treatment, lessening (or better yet eradicating) the stigma and learning that there is hope beyond illness. I really liked the approach that Utah is taking to lead in this field and I am hopeful for our future as a state and as a community.
The next story we are introduced to is the tale of Derek who struggles with Bipolar disorder and the struggle the family has had getting treatment for him. The film outlines the ridiculous puzzle of playing the treatment game, the way that people can get lost trying to navigate the twists and turns of treatment, visits and medication. “If you’re poor you get it for free, if you’re rich you can afford it and if you’re middle class those door are just not open to you. First of all you can’t afford it and second of all because your income you don’t qualify for it. So it’s a very, very difficult thing.” In this case Derek only found care when he got in trouble with the law. 40% of adults with a chronic or severe mental disorder will end up in prison. The film claims that this started with the best of intentions when deinstitutionalization happened, the intentions are debatable, and my thought is that it was an utter disregard for people who really needed help. Liz Felt clearly illustrates the ridiculous statistic of having more mentally ill people in prison than in treatment centers, what a terrible consequence of cutting funding for mental health.
The conversation then turns to the cost of medicine and how waiting for those medications and the lower cost and availability of other, illegal options makes people turn to a life of crime. The stories of the people not being diagnosed with these disorders until they end up in jail is shocking to me, but it probably shouldn’t be. I truly appreciate the way that Liz Felt is trying to break the stigma of mental illness so that people are less ashamed to get the help they need. Chuck Diviney discussed the return rate of the individuals leaving jail and returning because they don’t have the ongoing treatment. Luckily, Utah is working to combat this.
Utah has a team that actually tracks people who are in the mental health system, CIT. This team will check in with mentally ill people who may be homeless and try to get them to go in for hospital visits or to go stay at the shelter. Only 12% of Utah’s officers are certified in this program. I like how they are focusing on getting these people in touch with the JDOT team, Jail Diversion Outreach. JDOT really seems to be effective because it is a blanket approach to treating mental healthcare. The case managers have a 10 to 1 ratio and they can see each client every day if needed. JDOT has lowered bookings from 21 to .3 per client. The downside of JDOT is that it is very limited and only serves 60 people. The client they talk about is Rick Peary and they touch on the fact that he has been in jail 10 times and hospitalized 7 times. I have to imagine that the cost of JDOT is less than those multiple prison stays and hospitalizations. JDOT currently focuses only on the toughest cases, but I hope that it is able to expand soon.
Sim Gill really got to the heart of the problem when he said that if we are going to keep people out of jail, we have to believe that there is someone worth saving there in the first place. I do think that the stigma is still strong with mental illness and it's a problem that society would rather ignore than fix. The Mental Health Court seems like a great team work approach to helping people with mental illness and are in trouble with the law. I really liked how Sam said that they have to change their definition of success, he's taking about Serena's case, someone who has relapses but those relapses are becoming less frequent and less severe. At this point Sim reaffirms my earlier thought that the fewer relapses and incarcerations end up saving money in the long run. The fact that the funding for mental illness is so precarious is sad and the fact that prevention is the first thing to be cut is just a mystery to me. How do we as a society not see the value in this?
It is our job as a society to come together and see the value in mental health treatment, just as the opening scenes made us realize this is a societal issue, not an individual one. It is within our power to help those within our community who struggle succeed instead. Utah seems to be ahead of the game, but even though we are ahead of the game and have some great programs in place they need to be readily available to everyone who needs them, not just the poor or the rich.
I feel that this whole documentary speaks to the reason that we have Psychology as a course option, we are learning how we can help better our society through better mental health treatment, lessening (or better yet eradicating) the stigma and learning that there is hope beyond illness. I really liked the approach that Utah is taking to lead in this field and I am hopeful for our future as a state and as a community.