A regional evaluation of citizen mental health boards

Abstract

This is report of an evaluation of citizen board functioning in an eight‐county region. Included in the study were seven county mental health boards, four state hospital boards, one community mental health center and four metropolitan catchment area boards. Board effectiveness criteria (knowledge of mental health legislation, policy‐making effectiveness, knowledge of the community and agency procedures, organizational effectiveness) are related to demographic and ideological profiles for each board. Board effectiveness was measured by the Self‐Diagnosis Guidelines (Institute for Voluntary Organizations, 1977). Board ideology was assessed with the Community Mental Health Ideology Scale (Baker & Schulberg, 1969). Results indicated that: (1) boards were generally not representative of their communities; (2) most boards saw themselves as only marginally effective; (3) the low self‐ratings of boards were due to deficiencies in crucial areas of board responsibility; (4) there were significant differences in effectiveness among boards; and (5) board members reported less support for community mental health philosphy than some professional groups. Implications of the findigs for mental health policy and legislation were drawn.

Divided care and the Third Way: user involvement in statutory and voluntary sector cancer services

“…1997) and cystic fibrosis (Atkinson and Farshi 1998). There is, however, a predominance of studies that explore issues of user involvement in mental health (Bartlett and Grantham 1980, Church and Reville 1989, Hostick 1995, Bowl 1996, Vandergang 1996, Rea 1999) and this relates, in part, to the particular ethical and methodological issues that such categories of users raise.…”