Upcoming Meetings and Hearings

• Final Innovations Committee Meeting
  Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
  Courtyard by Marriott, 1782 Tribute Road, Sacramento
  
  
• MHSOAC Cultural and Linguistic Competence Technical Resource Group Meeting
  Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
  Courtyard by Marriott, 1782 Tribute Road, Sacramento
  
  
• MHSOAC (The Oversight and Accountability Commission) Meeting
  Thursday & Friday, June 14-15, 2007 - 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
  Courtyard by Marriott, 1782 Tribute Road, Sacramento
  
  
• POSTPONED: PEI Stakeholder Workgroup Meeting
  Tuesday, June 19, 2007 - 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
  Red Lion Inn, Sacramento
  
  
• POSTPONED: PEI Stakeholder Workgroup Meeting
  Tuesday, June 26, 2007 - 9:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
  Four Points, San Diego
  
  
• MHSOAC (The Oversight and Accountability Commission) Meeting
  Thursday & Friday, July 26-27
  Mission Inn, Riverside County

For information on local MHSA meetings in your county, please check your county’s website in the Mental Health home page OR contact your local county MHSA Coordinator. A list of all the coordinators is at:

http://www.dmh.ca.gov/mhsa/documents/MHSACoCoordContacts-5-23-07.pdf

General Updates on Some Components of the MHSA

Prevention and Early Intervention (PEI)

PEI will take up a large part of the agenda at the next Oversight & Accountability Commission (MHSOAC or OAC) meeting on June 14th and 15th. It will be discussed more on Friday, June 15th than the previous day. (The formal agenda is not out yet.)

The guidelines for the counties to conduct their local PEI planning processes and for submitting their applications for PEI funds are almost complete. This is a joint process involving the State Dept. of Mental Health and the Commission. The guidelines are sure to be discussed and perhaps reviewed at the next Commission meeting.

What has been agreed upon so far in regards to PEI state and local policy direction by the State DMH, the OAC, and the Counties, appears in a document that can be accessed at:

http://www.dmh.ca.gov/MHSOAC/docs/PolicyRecMHSAPEI.pdf

At this rate, the guidelines won’t be ready for the counties until some time in the Summer. Each county will then have to conduct some sort of process for community stakeholder input before putting together a plan that will be submitted to both the State Dept. of Mental Health and the OAC. Both will have to approve the plan before the county releases RFP’s or RFA’s for services at the local level. It is estimated that these RFP’s or RFA’s will not be approved until some time in 2008.

There will also probably be some statewide PEI projects conducted by the State DMH and these are mentioned on pages 11 and 12 of the policy direction document above.

Education and Training

On April 20th, the State DMH put out an information notice (No. 07-06) regarding County funding requests for MHSA workforce education and training planning and early implementation funding. Counties may now apply for these funds that are primarily for PLANNING and for the ability to eventually implement the whole Education and Training component. The staff at the State DMH in charge of this is Warren Hayes at (916) 651-0461 or Warren.Hayes@dmh.ca.gov

Some counties have applied for this money already. If you would like a copy of the information notice, go to the link below and go down to information notice 07-06. Note there are also three enclosures in addition to the actual notice :

http://www.dmh.ca.gov/DMHDocs/default.asp?view=notices

The final guidelines and then the state regulations are being completed. It will probably be the Fall of this year when the final state regulations regarding this component are posted.

Capital Facilities

May 25th was the last day to submit comments on the draft of proposed guidelines on the initial capital facilities component of the county’s three-year program and expenditure plan. To view the plan, go to:

http://www.dmh.ca.gov/mhsa/documents/draftAB1-CapitalFacilitiesGuidelines4-30-version.pdf

After the guidelines are finalized, then state regulations will be drafted based on these. Initial state regulations are not expected to be complete until approximately August of 2007.

To learn more on about this component, go to:

http://www.dmh.ca.gov/mhsa/CapFacility.asp

Technology (IT)

Friday, May 25th was the final day to submit comments on the draft of the three-year program and expenditure plan proposed guidelines for the Technology Component of the MHSA. To view the draft plan, click on or go to:

http://www.dmh.ca.gov/mhsa/documents/MHSATechnologyProposedGuidelines5-207.pdf

To learn more about this component, click on:

http://www.dmh.ca.gov/mhsa/ITech.asp

Housing

On May 14th, the State DMH released letter No. 07-06 to the counties regarding initial planning estimates for the MHSA housing program. It can be accessed at:

http://www.dmh.ca.gov/DMHDocs/default.asp?view=letters

This is just letting the counties know how much money they will be able to apply for supportive housing from the CSS component. The methodology used to calculate the amounts is described in this letter. The application itself is not yet available to counties.

The Commission recently moved to the following new office location:

700 N. 10th Street, Suite 202
Sacramento, CA, 95814
Phone: (916) 445-1104
Fax: (916) 445-1577