The final version of the "Combating Stigma: A Toolkit for Change", aimed at eliminating stigma inside the Michigan Department of Community Health, is out and looks good. It is also in electonic for on flash drives, and you can access the entire Toolkit through the Michigan Recovery Center of Excellence at http://www.mirecovery.org/ on the right side down around the middle of the page.
Workgroup leaders Colleen, Stephanie, and Deb presented the toolkit to the Council. They noted that 1 person in 5 who uses public mental health services are stigmatized within the system. The toolkit is organized to support a real campaign with an organization, and includes concise brochures targeted to professional sub-communities within the profesional mental health organizations in Michigan. They reviewed the content for the Council and the Partners.
Hard copies of the toolkit were mailed to each CMH Director, and a list of point people for each CMH is being assembled, The electonic version will be placed on national recovery sites, including SAMHSA. Also, the toolkit will be distributed through conferences and presentations over the next half year or so. The Toolkit also includes creaetive work from Michigan peers throughout. A "dry run" of the toolkit in Genesee County, and the feedback from that effort has made the Kit extremely easy to use. Articles on organization experiences with the Toolkit will be published on the MRCE website.
The Michigan Mental Health Medicaid Waiver, called the Specialty Services Waiver, has been resubmitted to the Feds for their approval. A long painful process of mutual questions and answers before the new waiver is final.
People who have both Medicaid and Medicare are called "dual eligibles", and Michigan will work to develop an integrated data system for better coordination and to halt gaming by the Medicare and medicaid systems as they try to foist costs on the other system. There are four hearings being held very quickly. More information is available in a PDF document at http://goo.gl/GKm3I.
Break for lunch....