|
|
|
||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Welcome to the California Committee of Concerned Psychologists
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Our Mission: Serving the Mentally Ill
We are a public service advocacy group comprised of mental health professionals and public citizens whose goal is to insure delivery of quality patient care services in California psychiatric facilities.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Fast Facts:
The Department of Justice investigates violations of the rights of institutionalized persons. The Civil Rights of Involuntary Persons Act (CRIPA) authorizes the Attorney General to investigate complaints involving federal rights violations and litigate when there is a pattern or practice of ongoing violations.
Since the enactment of CRIPA in l980, more than 300 facilities in 39 states, the District of Columbia, and the Commonwealths of Puero Rico and Northern Mariana Islands, and the territories of Guam and the Virgin Islands have been investigated. As a result, tens of thousands of institutionalized persons who were living in dire, often life-threatening conditions now receive adequate care and services. If state or local officials fail to correct the deficiences cited, CRIPA authorizes the Attorney General to file suit.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Services
Our advocacy efforts include contacting state and local government officials, Departmental agencies, and local public state facility administrators voicing our concerns about possible substandard care and suspected patient abuse of those involuntarily hospitalized in psychiatric care facilities. Our aim is to see that changes in the delivery of services to the mentally ill, in particular, those involuntary hospitalized in state mental health hospitals are brought about, when observed.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Please visit us also at www.cccpsychologists.org
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
State Mental Health Psychologists testify before California State Legislature
Drs. Pat Gehr, Walt Sullivan, and Mark Wolkenhaur testify before a California State Assembly Budget Subcommittee on April 23, 2003 regarding the status of implementation of AB947. According to the psychologists, the Department of Mental Health continues to be in violation of the law ( AB947 ) after four years since it was signed into law by the Governor.
Story to follow
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
AB 947 Assembly Budget Subcommittee Oversight Hearings
Implementation of AB947, a law passed in l998 will save the state over $30 million annually in California taxpayers revenue. This will be achieved if staff realignments are instituted by the Department of Mental Health, and psychologists are permitted to perform those duties and responsibilities legally authorized, under the provisions of AB947 of the H&SC 1316.5 Specifically, due to the considerable overlap
( approximately 90%) in the services that clinical psychologists and psychiatrists can legally perform, utilizing psychologists in areas which both are authorized to do would be more cost effective, particularly since psychologists’ salaries ($5,623 p/mo)
are less than half of psychiatrists’ ( $ 12,749 p/mo; R & R included ) A substantial reduction in the cost of mental health care services as well as huge benefits to the California taxpayer would be realized. Further, the Department of Mental Health would be meeting its legal responsibility, by utilizing resources in a manner which is not economically wasteful ( Government Code 9149.22 ).
For the past four years in the spirit of cooperation, psychologists in state mental health facilities have worked patiently with local Medical Staffs and the DMH in order to achieve implementation of AB947, and yet incredibly have been accused of being obstructionists by the DMH. Their efforts have included a futile exercise in proposing inclusion of legally authorized privileges into the existing privileging system ( l999 ), a failed attempt to amend illegal Medical Staff Bylaws ( as urged by the Department in it’s November 20, 2000 memo to all Medical Staffs ), to participation in a DMH Work Group examining the merits of AB947. The Department seemingly disbanded the Group in the summer of 2002 when</ | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||