More funding urged to address mental health, substance abuse treatment in Georgia
Staff Photo: Alan Mauldin
By Alan Mauldin
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ALBANY — Georgia is dead last in access to mental health services, and some changes need to be made to the system to help a population that is dealing with the effects of a pandemic, an advocate told Dougherty County Commission members on Monday.
“Georgia is ranked 51st out of the 50 states and (Washington) D.C. in terms of access of its citizens to mental health care,” Debra Richardson, a Region 4 board member of the Georgia Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Addictive Disease Advisory Council, said. “I like to think it’s a little better in Albany and the surrounding area, but that’s still not a good statistic.”
During her presentation to the commission, Richardson outlined some goals to improve mental health care, including eliminating the stigma around mental health and substance use disorders and focusing on prevention and recovery. Other priorities include addressing issues including housing, transportation and employment, and integrating care to ensure individuals receive services and support in a convenient manner.
Priorities include insurance parity, making sure private insurers in the state and government health insurance programs cover mental health treatment in the same manner as is the case for physical ailments.
Another priority is full funding of behavioral health care, including the implementation of a new 988 crisis line set to replace the current mental health crisis hotline in the summer.
“We must emphasize early intervention for mental health care for children,” Richardson said. “Our kids for the last five years have had so much trauma, so much stress. We’ve gone through the weather events and then COVID.”
One way to improve the state’s standing is to expand the state-funded APEX program that provides school-based mental health services to students and their families, she said. Only a few schools in the Dougherty County School System currently have the program on campus. But the school system has worked to increase access to counselors and services during the pandemic.
“We know, particularly, the kids have been out of school,” she said during an interview after the meeting. “They’ve been isolated. I think one thing that’s important is more funds for APEX.”
Richardson also encouraged people to attend the virtual Mental Health Day at the Capitol that will be available through Zoom from 10 a.m.-noon on Wednesday, and to contact state lawmakers to ask them to provide more support for mental health services.
Individuals can register for the Zoom meeting at https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_SHL4MCb1SJaN4sqwNh3Muw.
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