ACCESS is approved for Texas health services grants

ACCESS for Anderson and Cherokee County has been awarded $230,302 from a $21 million Texas Department of State Health Services grant for 2008. The agency will receive $290,000 from a $24 million grant in 2009.

The $21 million funding will go to local mental health centers to improve community based crisis services. Texas Department of Health Services is seeking proposals from those centers for the $24 million to be awarded early next year.

The money comes from an $82 million two-year appropriation from the Texas Legislature to improve how public mental health crisis services are provided statewide.

Allyn Lang, director for the ACCESS program, said "This funding is the first new money that has been placed in mental health services in years and years. Up until the present, we have only seen cuts. This is actually the first time that we have seen any new interest in mental health. We have fewer state hospital beds and fewer private hospital beds and yet the population continues to grow and with population growth people have increased needs."

Mr. Lang expressed his appreciation to State Representatives Chuck Hopson and Byron Cook and State Sen. Robert Nichols. "These gentlemen have been more than helpful to our agency and we appreciate all the hard work and help they have given us," Mr. Lang said.

The Texas Department of Health Services funding is part of an overall effort to increase access to crisis response services, reduce the need for hospitalizations and provide alternatives to incarceration for those in mental health crises. Crises may include situations in which people are, or believe they are, suicidal, a danger to others or having significant deterioration due to a mental condition.

The $21 million was recently provided to 38 Texas mental health centers to help pay for mobile outreach units, crisis hotline improvements and other crisis services in fiscal year 2008. The money also can be used to develop additional crisis services such as walk-in services, children's outpatient services or residential services, or to pay for specially trained mental health law enforcement officers.

ACCESS has already submitted a plan to use its $290,000 share of the $24 million funding. The law requires that part of the money will be used to finance a mobile crisis outreach team. A crisis hotline certified by the American Association of Suicidology has been contracted for the hotline calls 24 hours per day.

Statewide the $24 million will be awarded in two areas: Some $21.4 million will be awarded to establish or enhance psychiatric emergency service centers or other facilities that provide alternatives to sending mentally ill patients to hospitals or jails if they can otherwise be treated efficiently in more appropriate settings.

A total of $3 million will be awarded for up to four programs to provide outpatient mental health treatment to people who have been found incompetent to stand trial. The funds are for two-year programs.

Approximately $500,000 of the $82 million will be spent on statewide hotline training and certification, and another $800,000 will be used for evaluation and agency support. The remaining $35 million for the next fiscal year will be spent for continuation of local crisis services.