Mayor's Task Force on Mental Health

I'm the chair of the task force and attended both sessions, which I thought were very helpful - touching at moments. We live in a time where expectations far outpace the actual work that needs to get done to fulfill expectations. The task force is still in a listening, deliberative stage. We've only met a few times. So, we don't yet know what we intend to accomplish. Our charge from the Mayor is to assess the state of mental health services in Chapel Hill and environs (Orange) and to make recommendations for action and advocacy.I agree that many people are aware of the problems facing the public mental health system. My own PERSONAL response to what I've learned/heard so far is that there are many, many parts of this issue that we at the local level can only impact by adding our voices to the chorus of advocates for systemic change and reform of "Reform". But, what I'm beginning to see is that there are probably ways that we can influence local policy and community awareness, behavior, "friendliness" toward consumers who are trying to negotiate an "impossible" system, etc. We are conducting our work "in the public light", so we welcome attendance at our meetings and we especially invite comments and postings to our own blog site: http://mentalhealthnc.wordpress.com