LANSING, MI (WHTC-AM/FM) – A five-month-long effort to study how to fix what some say is Michigan’s “broken” mental health system has concluded.
The bipartisan state House Community Access Resources Education and Safety Task Force report released on Wednesday proposed several solutions, such as eliminating barriers to increased access to mental health care, creating a statewide crisis hotline, establishing incentives for hospitals to create and expand psychiatric wards, improving training for first responders, and providing additional treatment to convicts with mental health challenges during and after incarceration.
Republican Representative Mary Whiteford of the South Haven area was a member of that task force. “I have a lot of experience in (dealing with) mental health issues from being a nurse in a children’s hospital, to family, to being on my local community mental health board, and representing my county on the regional level as well,” she said.
A link to this report is here.
