mental health – Sandy Rosenberg

Providing assistance

February 14, 2024 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

Eric Luedtke, a former colleague in the House of Delegates and now the Governor’s Chief Legislative Officer, was one of the first witnesses.

He spoke of leaving his family’s Christmas Eve dinner to assist his mentally ill brother, who was in a confrontation at the local library.

One of the last witnesses was Evelyn Burton, whose son left Maryland to get treatment.

She sent him a cake for his birthday and wondered if he was well enough to call her.

He did.

House Bill 576 would require each county to establish an Assisted Outpatient Treatment.

Ms. Burton has been lobbying us to adopt this concept for over 18 years.

The ground has been laid for this bill to pass.

There were meetings this summer with legislators participating.

The bill is sponsored by Governor Moore, who also budgeted $3 million to initiate the program.

But there’s still work to be done.

My committee chair said to one witness, “I’d like you to do some work for me in the Senate.”

Making progress and bullet points

February 5, 2019 | by delsandy | Uncategorized | No Comments

There are many ways to make progress on an issue without passing a bill.

A new one today.

A constituent asked me to introduce a bill based on a law recently enacted in another blue state.

I got the bill drafted. He shared this idea with his professional colleagues.

They decided it was premature to put forward the legislation, but we now have a bill draft to discuss and refine between now and next session.

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Every summer, I meet with the staff of the Mental Health Association to decide what bill I’ll be working on with them.

This time, we didn’t decide on which bill until last week.

When I spoke at MHA’s annual meeting this afternoon, I read from bullet points about the Behavioral Health Transformation Act of 2019 and a second bill convening a work group to develop implementation plans.

I’ll know these bills much better when I’m at the witness table for the bill hearings,

February 29 – Bills dead but the work continues

March 1, 2016 | by delsandy | Sandy's 2016 Legislative Diary | No Comments

I withdrew two of my bills today.

One because the executive branch wrote a letter. The other because it was the right idea but not yet in the right pew.

The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene “plans to continue to make Wraparound services available to youth with intensive needs,” Secretary Van Mitchell wrote me today.

That was the purpose of House Bill 759: to maintain high quality mental health care for youth in outpatient settings.

I introduced the bill at the request of the mental health community. As we hoped, it brought everyone to the witness table for both the bill hearing and discussions afterward.

The letter and better care are the results.

The bill is no longer needed.

When I was in Israel last December, I learned that the government assumes the cost of the charitable sector’s successful social welfare programs.

“I’ll introduce a bill to do the same in Maryland,” I told my startled hosts.

I had even written the opening lines of my testimony.

Justice Brandeis wrote that the states are the laboratories of democracy.

In this instance, the state of Israel is a laboratory for democracy.

House Bill 748 would have created a grant program for job training programs based on the Israeli model.

As I prepared for the bill hearing, I realized that more work needs to be done on this concept. Instead of a poor bill hearing this week, I’ll discuss this idea with more people this summer.

Next year in Annapolis.

Early intervention – legislative and medical

March 24, 2014 | by delsandy | featured, Sandy's 2014 Legislative Diary | No Comments

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.