The Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) is the Federal agency within the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) that leads national efforts to improve prevention and mental health treatment services for all Americans. CMHS pursues its mission by helping States improve and increase the quality and range of treatment, rehabilitation, and support services for people with mental health problems, their families, and communities. CMHS programs and activities include:
(from the Conclusion)
Mental Health and Mental Illness Across the Lifespan
. . . Even more than is true for adults, children must be seen in the context of their social environments—that is, family and peer group, as well as that of their larger physical and cultural surroundings. Childhood mental health is expressed in this context, as children proceed along the arc of development. A great deal of contemporary research focuses on developmental processes, with the aim of understanding and predicting the forces that will keep children and adolescents mentally healthy and maintain them on course to become mentally healthy adults. Research also focuses on identifying what factors place some at risk for mental illness and, yet again, what protects some children but not others despite exposure to the same risk factors. In addition to studies of normal development and of risk factors, much research focuses on mental disorders in childhood and adolescence and what can be done to prevent or treat these conditions and on the design and operation of service settings best suited to the needs experienced by children. (Our emphasis.)
. . . and in 2004:
Transforming
Child Mental Health Care
"It is up to you—the States—to ensure that change actually takes place. This is why the Commission vested the States with one of the most critical elements of system transformation: creation of a Comprehensive State Mental Health Plan. As outlined by the Commission, the State plan should:
I’d like to spend a moment on the first item. States need to do a better job
coordinating the Federal dollars they already receive. We’ve learned through our
Transition, Linking, and Caring Program that areas receiving multiple grant
funds don’t communicate with each other. In other words, funding silos created
at the Federal level are being reproduced at the State level. This is simply
unacceptable! The Federal government is working hard to reduce fragmentation of
services. This is a primary objective of our Action Agenda and the Federal
Partners Workgroup that created it. The States need to work even harder at
ending fragmentation of services at their level.
Imagine a State mental health care system that combines the resources of a
mental health block grant, a child system-of-care grant, a Safe Schools/Healthy
Student grant, a homelessness grant, and grants from the Department of Labor and
the Department of Education! What could your State accomplish if you linked all
of these systems? Wouldn’t this be a phenomenal opportunity to realize the
concept of “any door is the right door” for someone needing help? What these
programs can accomplish together far outweighs what they can accomplish
individually.
The New Freedom Commission was right: “The time has long passed for yet another piecemeal approach to mental health reform.” The States, as well as the Federal Government, have to make a concerted effort to create comprehensive systems of care for children as well as adults. It’s time for us to move forward with what we know into what we do. "