Oregon Public Broadcasting

Washington State has embarked on a five year effort to transform the way mentally ill people are diagnosed and treated.

The idea is to bring a public health approach to mental health – that means a focus on prevention. Olympia correspondent Austin Jenkins reports.

This week, 250 people with a stake in mental health care in Washington State will gather in a hotel ballroom. They will be given hand-held, wireless polling devices and asked to weigh-in on how the state should begin to remake its mental health system.

For instance, should the state train school employees to better recognize the symptoms of emotional trauma.

Jeff Pike is with Washington’s Mental Health Transformation Project. He says the ultimate goal is to address mental illness before it gets to the crisis point.

Jeff Pike: “Currently the system is basically geared towards people who have a diagnosis. So in other words you know that there’s a problem, but the system can’t do anything about it until it’s really gone farther than it should have.”
 
Mental health providers are looking for the equivalent of the aspirin taken to prevent heart attacks.

Washington is the only northwest state with a federal Mental Health Transformation grant. Nationwide 1 in 4 adults has a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year.