Received today from Jane Osborn:

From: “Jane Osborn”
Subject: Georgia Crisis Response system
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2011 11:54:39 -0400

John, There was a Conversations that Matter group held here June 9th to discuss the changes coming with the closing of the state hospitals as it relates to persons with developmental disabilities. We had about 40 local people who were consumers, family members and some service providers in addition to officials from the Region 4 office that covers this area. The services for them will be drastically smaller than those planned for persons with a diagnosis of mental illness, but this training announcement has one session left in this area…June 28 in Thomasville. Scroll all the way to the bottom to find information for the Thomasville event.

The one we had here was sponsored by the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities and All About Developmental Disabilities, an Atlanta-based advocacy group. One of the things we learned was that these Crisis Response Systems supposedly have been in place since June 1, one based in Valdosta and one in another part of the region. You can go to the DBHDD website to see the counties included in our area.

The teams were formed by contracting with organizations from California and Indiana (instead

of some of the local organizations that applied for the contracts and there are some serious concerns about how teams from other states can begin to become familiar enough with the (limited) resources here to be effective any time soon. One social worker told the story of a teenager who is in foster care whose behavior is probably indicative of autism, but he has never been diagnosed having sat for three days in a hospital in this region earlier this month because NO ONE knew what to do with him since he could not stay in his foster home because of his behaviors…..

The services that comprise this broken system were among the few allocated funds over what they had last year by the Georgia legislature because of the Department of Justice agreement, but it is still too little, too poorly set up and very limited in areas outside metro Atlanta and south of Macon. I would encourage people to attend the meeting on June 28 (they need to sign up by June 21) and voice their concerns there and to their legislators.

Jane

Much tarzanning around finally found the DBHDD website page about the Georgia Crisis Response System, and more tarzanning found this PDF of the Training Announcement. It does not seem to appear anywhere on DBHDD as a text in a web page, so we’ve stuck it on the LAKE site as as an HTML page.

There are actually two more sessions, in Waycross and Thomasville, although you’re supposed to have already registered for the Waycross one. Registration is still open until 21 June for the Thomasville session.

-jsq

Short Link: