Worth reading: Effective Partnerships

My vacation has been (and continues to be) wonderful, but I wanted to share two tidbits that I found on my e-mails. 

First as we move into the CSA creation process, check this out from the UMass, Dept. of Psychiatry’s Center for Mental Health Services Research: a new issue brief written by Jodi Adams, MA, Joanne Nicholson, PhD, Susan Maciolek, MPP, Kate Biebel, PhD entitled, “Family Networks Implementation Study: Integrating Rigor and Relevance in Effective Research Partnerships”
The CSA RFR is out on the Mass Behavioral Health Partnership website, and we realy need to be thinking about what partnership means.

Also, we lost a bit in the current round of budget cuts;  according to Health Care for All:

9C Cuts and Children's Mental Health

Due to lower than expected state revenues, Governor Patrick announced a series of funding reductions to the FY 2009 Budget last week. Among the reductions that were made, $2.25 million was cut from the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services account (line item 5042-5000). This includes a cut in the $250,000 that was appropriated to pilot the Massachusetts Child Psychiatric Access Project (MCPAP) in public schools. 

The Children's Mental Health Campaign is working closely with the Patrick Administration and the Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership to determine the impact of all funding reductions on services to children living with mental illness. We will continue to update our supporters when we learn more.

So, clearly there is some work to do.  Stay tuned for advice on appropriate action (One thing, of course, to think carefully abou tthe implications of eliminating the State Income Tax).  More later.