Early intervention – legislative and medical

You may have read this:

Last year, Maryland enacted one of the nation’s strictest gun laws after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newtown, Conn., but also opted to focus on mental health issues by creating the center for early intervention.

It was in a Baltimore Sun story about the Center for Excellence on Early Intervention for Serious Mental Illness.  Its aim is to intervene on behalf of a mentally ill person who might otherwise fall through the cracks, like the Columbia Mall shooter.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/health/bs-md-mental-health-shootings-20140321,0,6918153.story

We didn’t address mental health issues last session by accident.

Shortly after the tragedy in Newtown, I met with two mental health advocates.

“This incident is an opportunity to increase spending for mental health prevention,” I advised.  “Draft a bill that lays out the unmet needs.”

The fiscal note for the Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Safety Net Act of 2013 was $40 million in State funds.  The budget for the Center for Excellence is $1.2 million.

After reading the Sun article this weekend, I wrote the advocates.

Court-ordered treatment is in the forefront now was the response.  We’ll resume working on the need to get preventive services in place.

If your Task Force recommendation can make it there, it can make it anywhere…

The New York Times reports:

Governor Cuomo’s “aides worked with several advocacy groups, including the Brady Campaign in Washington, New Yorkers Against Gun Violence and the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in San Francisco, to develop a package of measures that would be comprehensive but also politically achievable. They looked to other states; a provision in the new law to require mental health professionals to report possibly violent patients was similar to a recommendation by a task force created last year by Gov. Martin O’Malley and state legislators [Delegate Lu Simmons and I were the sponsors] in Maryland.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/24/nyregion/cuomo-used-all-his-means-to-pass-gun-control-package.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

That is a first.  My legislation leads to a law being enacted in another state before we do so in Maryland.

As we draft our bill, Delegate Simmons and I will include all of the recommendations of the Task Force so that they can receive a full hearing by the legislature.

    We will also introduce legislation outlining the preventive programs the State should fund so that people don’t reach the stage where they pose a threat to others.

 

  • My Key Issues:

  • Pimlico and The Preakness
  • Our Neighborhoods
  • Pre-Kindergarten
  • Lead Paint Poisoning