Good Morning. I’m Jennifer Mahan, speaking today on behalf of the Mental Health Association in North Carolina , the states largest and oldest advocacy organization on behalf of mental health and persons with mental illness.

Everyone here wants North Carolina to have a good public mental health, developmental disability and addictive disease services system. The Mental Health Association has hoped that the changes that the system has been through would eventually result in a simple, consistent way for people to get quality services and supports. What has resulted instead is continued disparity in access to care across our system: there are some good evidence based services and quality providers, some areas with good management, some places and instances where things are working and at the same time we have seen disruption of peoples’ lives, a significant loss or lack of needed services and in some tragic cases there have been preventable deaths.

The Secretary’s proposal to reorganize the LMEs has raised many questions about what constitutes quality management of a pubic mental health system. The proposal should be considered; as should he larger question of what is the best way to meet people’s needs. Given the continual upheaval of the past seven years, this proposal is yet another massive change planned for a very short timeframe with the potential to further disrupt peoples well being.

Any plan for improving our mental health, developmental disability and substance abuse system should include the following:

        Have a realistic timeframe that assures stability for
        accessing services.

Be carefully thought out, include benchmarks, and most important should be created with the full participation of a diverse group of system consumers and family members.

Remove, not create, additional layers of bureaucracy that make it more difficult for consumers and families to navigate the system.

Governance built around promoting quality services and supports in partnership between government, providers, consumers and families. 

If consolidation of governance promoted quality, and achieved cost savings, those savings should go into the better services for people.

Regardless of the management, governance and service delivery structure; North Carolina citizens need a mental health, developmental disability and addiction services system that is easy to navigate and pursues quality outcomes. Any changes we make should further these goals with the least disruption for people getting services. In closing, MHANC urges the members of the Legislative Oversight Committee to focus on stabilizing our system. Please let things just be for a while and do not make a large number of changes this session. Thank you for your time today.