Va. mental health services improve, advocacy group says

Virginia's 211 telephone help line for social, health and mental-health services won a nod for innovation in a national mental-health advocacy group's generally glum view of America's system for mental-health care.

A report card by the National Alliance on Mental Illness gave the nation a D for mental-health care. Virginia was one of 14 states to see an improvement from the group's last report in 2006, rising to a C from a D.

"There's still work to be done, but there's recognition we've made some progress," said Frank Tetrick, assistant commissioner of the state Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services.

"But it's a C. Nobody wants to be just average."

Most of the reason for Virginia's better grade was a modest increase in funding after the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, when senior Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and professors, said the alliance's Virginia executive director, Mira Signer.

"We're sort of at a crossroads," she said. "We made some baby steps in the right direction, but there is a lot more to be done."

Virginia matched the national average of a C for core services -- ranking slightly better than the national average for the number of psychiatric hospital beds, for instance, but in the bottom one-quarter of states in the percentage of people with serious mental illness receiving any care.

Virginia also ranked in the lowest quarter of states in having enough mental-health workers.

The state matched the national grade of D in helping people with mental illness find places for themselves in the community.

Virginia did slightly better than the national average for its efforts to give people with mental illness a voice in their care -- its 211 system helped Virginia ranked first in the nation for a "consumer and family test drive," during which alliance volunteers tried to navigate state systems to see how hard it was to obtain help.

The state also ranked above-average for promoting health, winning good marks for its plans to develop its mental-health work force and a state law requiring insurers offer the same dollar coverage for treating serious mental illness as they offer for physical illness.

Virginia ranked above the national average when it came to paying for several essential services, including Medicaid for mobile crisis services and case management.

But Virginia ranked below average in access to antipsychotic medications and supported employment programs.

The state got below-average grades for programs to divert people with mental illness from jail, where many here end up because there is no other place to house them safely when they are in a depths of a crisis.

Virginia ranked significantly below average in helping people with mental illness find decent places to live.

Improving jail diversion and housing programs will be a major effort, Tetrick said.

Virginia also ranked below the national average in the availability of assertive community treatment, a highly successful program of caring for people -- who otherwise would be hospitalized -- in their homes.

"It was like boot camp for me," said Donald Durrette, 52, of Richmond, who worked with a Richmond assertive-treatment team for 10 years. "They helped me get my sleep habits right, eating habits, medication habits."

Durrette, who is managing severe bipolar disorder and severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, now lives on his own and works in an assisted-living center caring for others. And he is a taxpayer.

"I do fine," he said.

"I still get depressed some days . . . but it's never so bad that I can't get out of bed," he said. "I've reestablished relationships and I have relationships with new people, and it's not my illness speaking when I do. It's me."

Contact David Ress at (804) 649-6051 or .