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"Changing Attitudes, Changing Lives" continues as theme for annual Mental Illness Awareness Week
September 23, 2011
Community Mental Health Center, Inc., Lawrenceburg, other mental health providers, and advocates for mental health care throughout the United States are working together with hundreds of thousands of Americans during Mental Illness Awareness Week, October 2-8, to continue support for mental health care services and to provide education about mental illnesses.
"Changing Attitudes, Changing Lives" continues as the theme for this year's event. Mental Illness Awareness Week was established by Congress in 1990 in recognition of the efforts of the National Alliance for the Mentally lll (NAMI) to raise mental illness awareness. NAMI has chapters in every state in the nation and is active in advocating for the rights of individuals with mental illnesses and in lobbying for improved services.
"Many people are directly affected by mental illness," says NAMI on its website. "The good news is that treatment does work and recovery is possible."
NAMI and other groups advocating for mental health services have been encouraged by recent developments in mental health care, including parity laws and components of the the Affordable Care Act affecting mental health services. As with other health care programs, sufficient funding is critical to mental health services. When mental health care is cut, greater costs often result from lost jobs and careers, disrupted families, increased homelessness, higher insurance costs, and much more expensive costs for hospital emergency rooms, nursing homes, schools, police and courts, and jails and prisons.
On average, people living with serious mental illnesses live 25 years less than the rest of the population. One reason is that less than one-third of adults and less than one-half of children with a diagnosed illness receive treatment.
"The U. S. Surgeon General has reported that stigma is a major barrier to people seeking help when they need it," NAMI says. "That's why this week is so important. We want people to understand mental illness and join a dialogue with us. The more people know, the better they can help themselves or help their loved ones get the help and support they need."
CMHC served more than 5,000 people during State Fiscal Year 2010 (July 1, 2009 to June 30, 2010). The Center provides comprehensive behavioral health services (mental health and addiction services) to individuals of all ages at facilities in Dearborn, Franklin, Ohio, Ripley and Switzerland counties.
Mental illnesses are medical illnesses. Information from NAMI indicates that one in four adults experiences a mental health disorder in a given year. One in 17 lives with a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, major depression or bipolar disorder, and about one in 10 children have a serious mental or emotional disorder. According to a mental illness fact sheet from NAMI, "Mental disordes fall along a continuum of severity. Even though mental disorders are widespread in the population, the main burden of illness is concentrated in a much smaller population -- about 6 percent, or 1 in 17 Americans -- who suffer from a serious mental illness. It is estimated that mental illness affects 1 in 5 families."
Early identification and treatment is vital -- by getting individuals the treatment they need early, recovery is accelerated and the brain is protected from further harm related to the course of illness. The best treatments for serious mental illness today are highly effective -- between 70 and 90 percent of individuals have significant reduction of symptoms and improve quality of life with a combination of medication and psychosocial treatments and supports. The economic cost of untreated mental illnesses is more than $100 billion each year in the United States.
During this week, millions of Americans will honor the challenges being brought about by mental illness as well as celebrating the recoveries they or their loved ones have embraced.
For more information about services offered by CMHC, please call (812) 537-1302 for the location of an office year you, or visit our website at www.cmhcinc.org. for more information.
All services of Community Mental Health Center are provided without regard to race, religion, disability, gender, color, age, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, sexual orientation or political belief.
