Board Approves '06 Budget, Endorses Position Statements

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) is expanding its outreach initiatives by establishing “action centers” to deal with issues affecting children and adolescents with mental illness and multicultural populations, Executive Director Michael Fitzpatrick, M.S.W., told the APA Board of Trustees last month.

Another such center will focus on legal issues affecting care and treatment of people with serious mental illness, he said.

APA President Steven Sharfstein, M.D., who has been on the board of NAMI-Maryland for the last three years, invited Fitzpatrick to update APA Trustees on NAMI's new initiatives and other issues.

Fitzpatrick lauded the increased clout that the partnership between his organization and APA has generated on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures.“ It's essential to work in coalitions” to respond to legislative proposals that have an impact on people with mental illness, he emphasized.

He also cited NAMI's expanded use of technology, noting that it is committed to getting more news and other information out in electronic form, as younger people rely less on information that comes in traditional print form. NAMI's Web site, he added, averages about 13,000 hits a day, and there are about 90,000 registered site users.

Fitzpatrick was particularly enthusiastic about the “report card” that NAMI will soon issue grading every state's mental health system. In addition to rating departments on several factors, each report will come with a list of five items that the state mental health department needs to improve. The report cards will be issued every two years, he noted.

NAMI is trying to obtain funds to issue a similar report card for every state's child mental health system.

Finally, Fitzpatrick pointed out that NAMI's current president, Suzanne Vogel-Scibilia, M.D., is a psychiatrist.

Betsy Henderson, M.D., president of the Mississippi Psychiatric Association (MPA), was also invited to address the APA Board. She spoke about the tribulations that clinicians and people with mental illness and their families are enduring as a result of Hurricane Katrina's destruction of a large portion of that state.

Much of the health infrastructure was destroyed in Mississippi's populous Gulf Coast region, and only a few psychiatrists are left to treat patients in that area, she said. She added that the state's mental health department has been of little help in assisting psychiatrists and mental health professionals reassemble the pieces of the shattered system.

The MPA plans to partner with NAMI and other organizations to focus on the needs of patients in that region, Henderson noted, and has already helped form a coalition with representatives from psychology, addiction treatment, and social work to ensure that there is a “more effective voice in planning for an extended recovery period.”

Witnessing the destruction of so many mental-health-related resources has taught them that “disasters evolve in stages,” she said, and that every region needs to “work proactively on a disaster-response plan.”

Board members also acted on a broad range of proposals. Among them, the Board voted to

The task force has several accomplishments of which it can already boast, said co-chair David Fassler, M.D., including convincing the AMA to adopt a resolution addressing suicide on campuses, a revised APA position statement on college mental health care, development of educational materials, and meetings with other organizations involved in the same issue. The task force plans to develop guidelines for psychiatrists who work with college students, he noted.

Past President Paul Appelbaum, M.D., chair of the Council on Psychiatry and Law, announced that the U.S. Supreme Court has accepted a case from Arizona that concerns the constitutionality of that state's insanity defense statute, which does not allow for consideration of whether a defendant was capable of understanding the effect of the violent act he or she is charged with committing. The defense is challenging the law's exclusion of psychiatric testimony regarding intent. The council and its Committee on Judicial Action are recommending that APA submit an amicus curiae brief in the case. The full Board or its Executive Committee is required to approve amicus briefs before they are submitted. ▪