Book offers concrete recommendations for change
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11/04/09
Timothy Kelly, director of the De Pree Center Public Policy Institute at Fuller Seminary, discusses his book Healing the Broken Mind: Transforming America’s Failed Mental Health System in a new Washington Post blog. To read the blog, click here . Kelly takes a hard look at America’s troubled mental health system and how it can be transformed by promoting community-based recovery through evidence-based practices.
Healing the Broken Mind is intended to provoke dialogue and action on the topic of mental health reform. It uses clinical cases to demonstrate the need for change, recommends specific policy changes, and targets a broad audience: providers, consumers, those seeking care, students, and policymakers. Kelly writes, “This book is a book of hope—hope that America will provide what our neighbors with mental illness so desperately need. They need innovative and effective care that is home and community-based, outcome oriented, and leads to recovery. Recovery does not mean perfect healing, but it does mean improvement to the point of being able to have a real home, a fulfilling job, and deep relationships.”
Kelly argues that the “patchwork of care” traditionally employed to treat mental illness is not up to the task, and that what is needed is profound, fundamental, and system-wide change. In the book, Kelly points out that a five-fold vision for mental health transformation is required if change is to be comprehensive and long-lasting. Otherwise, improvement will be piecemeal and temporary. A transformed mental health system, says Kelly, must be results focused, innovative, consumer friendly, well funded, and committed to change.
Healing the Broken Mind is based on Kelly’s research as well as his personal experience as Commissioner for the Virginia Department of Mental Health. “An important read for the general public, consumers, and policy makers,” says Len Bickman, professor of psychology, psychiatry, and public policy at Vanderbilt University.
Before joining the De Pree Center Public Policy Institute, Kelly was associate professor of psychology and director of clinical training in Fuller Seminary’s School of Psychology. In addition to his service as Commissioner of Virginia’s Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services, he has served on the boards of both the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors and the National Research Institute.