Current issues in mental health planning

Abstract

Resolution of some of the issues identified by communities in planning comprehensive community mental health services is critical to movement from the planning stage to program development and operation. These issues relate both to the relationship of the local mental health system and to other major community systems: e.g., the general health system, the anti-poverty program and multijurisdictional political systems, and to the interrelationships of certain component parts within the mental health system itself, (including the private practice sector of psychiatry and other areas of medicine) delimited mental health services offered by voluntary agencies, the state mental hospital system, nonpsychiatric agencies, and the “gatekeepers.“ Specific reference is made to solutions proposed for the District of Columbia.