Gov. JB Pritzker declared last week when announcing the
formation of the Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center that the state
was building “the best behavioral health system in the nation.”
It was quite a bold thing to say. So, my associate Isabel Miller
and I asked a couple of follow-up questions: How long will this take and how
much will it cost?
The response from a spokesperson was underwhelming: “Under
Gov. Pritzker’s leadership, the state has invested hundreds of millions of
dollars to rebuild our behavioral health infrastructure and the governor is
committed to continuing these critical investments year after year to build the
best system in the nation. Illinois has climbed in the national rankings by
putting our people first and we’re on the right path if we continue to make
generational change. With our statewide partnerships and continued investment
Illinois will soon serve as the national standard for a behavioral health
system that prioritizes workers and provides the best possible care for those
who need it.”
That obviously didn’t answer either of our questions.
Recent national rankings issued by Mental Health America, a
group founded more than a century ago, show Illinois has moved from an
11th-place overall in mental health in 2018 to ninth place this year. An
overall ranking of 1-13, according to the organization, “indicates lower
prevalence of mental illness and higher rates of access to care.”
However, the state’s ranking for adults slipped during that
time period from eighth to ninth, and the ranking for youth remained at 13th.
This despite spending hundreds of millions of additional dollars since the
start of 2019 on mental health initiatives.
Even so, a key stakeholder heaped praise on the governor’s
plan to use the new Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center to lead the
revamp of the long-troubled Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center in
deep southern Illinois.
Equip for Equality issued an investigative report back in
2005 which documented numerous horrors at Choate. The group called for the
facility’s closure at the time. “Nearly two decades later,” the group claimed
last week via press release, “enhanced monitoring activities show little has
changed.”
The group claims that Choate residents continue to be
“segregated” from their community “without receiving the necessary services to
actually address why they ended up there.” Residents, the group said, continue
to be “afraid of staff and peers, and afraid of retaliation if they report
staff abuse.”
“Many of the recent news stories are about incidents that
happened a year or more ago,” said Stacey Aschemann, Equip for Equality’s vice
president in charge of monitoring the conditions at Choate. “Based on our recent
monitoring, we can say without a doubt that these continue to be ongoing
issues.”
So, why has it taken so long for the state to act? The
governor told reporters the state hadn’t had the financial resources to do
enough about the problem. The new Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center
has been in the works for five years and will hopefully help the state increase
the workforce size enough to deal with the issues, not only at Choate, but
throughout the state. With more tax revenues coming in, the state can start
getting a handle on things.
The problems are severe, despite what national rankings may
show. Currently, 15,000 people are on a waiting list for community-based
intellectual and developmental disabilities placement, according to a report last
week by Capitol News Illinois, Lee Enterprises and ProPublica Illinois. Those
outlets’ reporting on Choate, by the way, sparked the recent intense interest
in the facility’s many problems and helped push the administration into action,
a fact which Pritzker himself has acknowledged.
There are, of course, parochial concerns about any changes
at Choate. State Sen. Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro), who represents the area,
claimed the central problem is with facility management (a good point) and said
she opposed moving residents out of the facility (not so good). AFSCME, of
course, is worried about the future of its members at Choate.
The state just has to get smarter. These problems have
existed for decades, but the folks at Choate and thousands of others across
this state deserve care and help, not physical abuse and neglect. The people in
charge need to be better than this, so this attempt to bring new workers into
the system and keep them there cannot fail.
• Rich Miller also publishes Capitol Fax, a daily political
newsletter, and CapitolFax.com.