-
The Economics of Recovery: System Reform
New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s Medicaid Redesign Team gathered an impressive list of suggestions to stem the growth of New York’s 50+ billion dollar Medicaid program. I was particularly impressed with their adoption of the 80/20 concept developed by business marketers in the 70’s....
-
The Mom of a Mentally Ill Child Needs Understanding
Being the mother of a child with mental illness is a grueling job. First, being female doesn’t help. Besides usually being the primary caretaker of the child, being female in our culture can mean being taken less seriously. There’s also an assumption, rarely directly expressed, that a mom...
-
The NYSPA Report: Achieving the Promise of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act
The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (MHPAEA, the Parity Act) ushered in a new era for health insurance coverage for mental health and substance use (mh/sud) disorders. The foundation for this was laid by the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996, and, significantly, the Patient...
-
Trauma Assessment for Women Receiving Mental Health Services
The National Institute of Mental Health states that in any given year 25% of adults in the United States are diagnosable for one or more mental disorders. Of that 25%, 6% meet the criteria for severe mental illness. Women are not more likely to meet the criteria for a diagnosis however; women are...
-
Understanding Eating Disorders: An Overview from the NIMH
An eating disorder is marked by extremes. It is present when a person experiences severe disturbances in eating behavior, such as extreme reduction of food intake or extreme overeating, or feelings of extreme distress or concern about body weight or shape. A person with an eating disorder may...
-
What Gets in the Way: Latinas Who Don’t Access or Stay in Treatment
As social workers in urban settings, we often hear about the traumas our female clients endure. These include experiencing or witnessing: sexual assaults, parental abuse/neglect, domestic violence, child fatalities, and life-threatening illnesses/injuries (Gaillot 2010). Women are more likely to...
-
Women and Depression: Discovering Hope
Everyone occasionally feels blue or sad, but these feelings are usually fleeting and pass within a couple of days. When a woman has a depressive disorder, it interferes with daily life and normal functioning, and causes pain for both the woman with the disorder and those who care about her....
-
A Mother’s Challenge: Planning for the Transition of Decision-Making
On a recent airing of National Public Radio’s “This American Life” the narrator tells the story of Emily Feldman, a New Jersey woman in her 70’s who has been caring for her 39-year-old autistic son, Scott, all his life. Emily is getting on in years and she knows she cannot continue to care...
-
Editorial: New York’s Medicaid Reform Portends Major Changes in Behavioral Health Service Delivery
The 27-member Medicaid Redesign Team (MRT) appointed by Governor Andrew Cuomo in January made a series of far-reaching recommendation pertaining to the delivery of mental health and substance abuse services (taken together, behavioral health services). The MRT, comprised of stakeholders from...
-
Inequality in the Effects of Disaster Trauma in Women
Over the past decade, the U.S. has seen an increase in large scale disasters both man-made and natural, from 9-11-01, the Virginia Tech and the Fort Hood Shootings to Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike. These events have the potential to create states of acute emotional distress in people who are...
