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- All Subjects: Emigration and immigration
- All Subjects: Mental health services
- Creators: Morrison Institute for Public Policy
Arizona’s public behavioral health care system, which serves some 150,000 mentally ill and vulnerable state residents, is wrestling with a number of urgent challenges. In addition to budget cuts resulting from the current economic crisis, and the demands of a 28-year-old class-action lawsuit, the system has been repeatedly criticized in several areas, including for inadequate staff, data, housing support, and crisis services. On July 22, a panel of professionals who play key roles in the system discussed these and other issues before some 300 behavioral health providers, supervisors, and policymakers at the annual Summer Institute hosted by Arizona State University’s Center for Applied Behavioral Health Policy. This paper provides an abbreviated report of that discussion, which was partially designed and moderated by ASU’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy.
Severe and widespread budget cuts in behavioral health and substance abuse services for lower-income Arizonans who don’t qualify for AHCCCS have already taken effect across the state. Even before these cuts were implemented, it was clear that the publicly-supported behavioral health system in our state was not adequately serving many Arizonans who needed mental health or substance use disorder treatment. This paper represents an effort by Arizona State University’s Centers for Applied Behavioral Health Policy and the Morrison Institute for Public Policy to promote and enrich Arizona’s public dialogue about these problems and potential solutions.
Migration is a global phenomenon today, putting the United States in the midst of another historic wave of immigration. As a "gateway" and a destination, Arizona is certainly not alone in coping with people crossing borders.
Some of Arizonans’ most common and destructive illnesses—those of the brain—are failing to receive adequate treatment due to a combination of modern governmental gridlock and a centuries-old philosophy that separates the mind from the body.
How can we continue to concentrate on such key issues as job creation, education, pollution, the prison system, water management and structural deficits when the incendiary issue of illegal immigration again grabs the headlines?
Examines illegal immigration and the fact illegal crossings and apprehensions are down, giving pause to inflammatory rhetoric and possibly creating a window of opportunity for civil discourse on this especially volatile political issue.