Nonprofit leaders urge state to work with advocacy groups in solving mental health access

Several leaders of disability advocacy groups recently sent a letter to a Mississippi state agency requesting that the newly appointed coordinator of mental health accessibility include them in conversations on how to improve access to mental health services in Mississippi, the Daily Journal reported Nov. 18. On Oct. 28, the executive directors of the Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities, Disability Rights Mississippi, Families as Allies and Life of Mississippi wrote a joint letter to Liz Welch, director of the Mississippi Department of Finance and Administration, outlining different ways advocacy groups could be beneficial to improving mental health in the state. “Each and every day, we work with people whose lives bear witness to the fact that Mississippi does indeed discriminate against people with mental illness and, as a result, unlawfully segregates them in institutional settings, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act,” the letter reads. The group wrote that they have extensive knowledge about community mental health practices in other states, models of mental health authorities, and relevant documents and information to help assist the state in making im‐provements. Last month, Welch appointed attorney William Rosamond to the Mississippi Department of Mental Health as the coordinator of mental health accessibility. Joy Hogge, the director of Families as Allies, told the Daily Journal that even though there are some reservations about Rosamond's ability to be objective and impartial in his analyses, she hopes he can help facilitate a remedy to the state's broken mental health system and work with advocacy groups.