A new Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities initiated operations in the state of Georgia on July 1. Previously, mental health was one of 36 agencies within the state’s welfare department competing for attention and funding.
Georgia has nearly 100,000 children and adolescents with severe emotional disturbances and the agency created to care for them has served just 32 percent. What’s more, the Governor’s Commission on Mental Health concluded last year that too many are treated only after a crisis.
Now, a new pilot program treats people with mental illness while they have the support of a family, teachers, coaches and dance instructors. One person describing the program said, “They have been there 24/7 and for everything. I have never seen an agency that did all of that.”
Read about it here at Jacksonville.com.
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