Informing Policy

Our Role in Informing State Policy

Mental health reform has been a cyclical process. As a program within the School of Medicine at UNC-Chapel Hill, the CECMH is engaged in creating responses to important questions about the future of mental health care in North Carolina:

1. What should mental health care look like in the coming years, especially with health reform taking place at the national level?
2. How can we ensure that North Carolinians with psychotic disorders and other severe mental illnesses benefit from advances in overall healthcare?
3. How can psychiatry and other medical disciplines within our state embrace recovery principles?

Our responses to these questions will come from our clinical experience — what we see working in our treatment settings and in the lives of our patients — and our research endeavors. From our unique combined position as clinicians and academicians, we seek to serve as a resource to state leaders as they fashion an improved system of care.

Staff from the Center serve in a resource capacity to these state efforts:

• Behavioral Health Medicine Workgroup (MH/DD/SA)
• Physician's Advisory Group (DMA)
• Case Management Workgroup (DMA)
• Community Support Transition Workgroup (MH/DD/SA)
• Trans-institutionalization study (Department of Corrections) 
• iCare 
• Mobile Crisis Team Service Definition Workgroup (MH/DD/SA) 

Regional and Local Efforts at Informing Policy

Policy doesn't just happen at the state level. Regional and local decision makers have impact on what services are available and how they are managed. Staff from the Center bring their expertise to conversations with the following organizations:

• NAMI, Orange County, Board of Directors
• OPC Providers Council 
• Chapel Hill Mayor's Task Force on Mental Health
• Club Nova, Board of Directors 
• Orange County Health Department, Subcommittee of Health Carolinians
• Orange County Client Rights Committee
• Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness