There is strong evidence for the success of FSP's aggressive approach in reducing dangerous, increasing trajectories in MHES use. More research is needed, but key efficacious components within the program may be candidates for broader application when providing community-based, crisis-averting care for the most socially and economically vulnerable, seriously mentally ill children and youth.
Using 6 years of data from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, the present study investigated ethnic minority-White disparities in self-rated health and community functioning for persons with untreated mental illness. Comparing minority and White persons with untreated severe mental illness (SMI) and mild and moderate mental illness (MMMI), the study sought evidence of “double jeopardy”: that minority persons with mental illness suffer an added burden from being members of ethnic minority groups. For African Americans with SMI and MMMI, results indicated that the odds were greater of living in poverty, being unemployed, and being arrested in the past year, and for African Americans with SMI, the odds were greater of reporting fair/poor health. For Native Americans/Alaska Native persons with MMMI, the odds were greater of living in poverty and being arrested in the past year. For Latinx persons with SMI and MMMI, the odds were greater of living in poverty and for Latinx persons with SMI the odds were greater of reporting fair/poor health. Results indicate that African Americans with mental illness suffer pervasive adversity relative to Whites and Native Americans/Alaska Natives and Latinx persons do so selectively.
California's Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) created Full Service Partnership programs (FSPs) targeting socially and economically vulnerable children with mental illness who are underserved by counties' public mental health treatment system. To determine whether FSPs reach a distinctive group of children, this study compares indicators of FSP-targeted underservice for FSP entrants (n = 15,598) versus everyone treated in the counties' public mental health systems (n = 282,178) and for FSP entrants versus entrants in the most intensive Medicaid delivered program in California, Therapeutic Behavioral Services (TBS, n = 11,993). Results identify that, despite first encountering mental health services systems at earlier ages, FSP clients had fewer months of treatment and were less likely to have been treated in the prior 6 months, except for crisis care, as compared to all other children served, after considering clinical severity and indicators of service need. FSP entrants also had more substance abuse and trauma-related problems. Although less seriously ill than TBS served children, FSP served children were significantly underserved. The results indicate that, amid overlapping policies and programs, carving out and reaching a distinctly underserved population can be achieved in practice, and that specialized programs, such as the FSP program, which target underserved children, have the potential to augment a system's ability to reach the underserved. (PsycINFO Database Record
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