Ukiah Daily Journal
Crisis care is lacking for Mendocino County”s most severely mentally ill because of a poorly-worded contract drafted when the county privatized its mental health services, according to the Mendocino County grand jury.
The county contracted out its adult mental health services to Ortner Management Group in May 2013, and, according to a report the grand jury recently released, “The imprecise language and provisions included in the contract for privatization results in ineffective services for clients who are diagnosed as Level 3, the most severely impaired.”
The grand jury”s report, titled, “Privatization of Mental Health Delivery Services,” found “a serious oversight in the preparation of the contract.”
According to the report, “The clients most in need of mental health assistance were specifically excluded from the language of the contract.”
State law requires the county to ensure that the Mental Health Wellness Act of 2013 is implemented, and the Act requires counties “to provide crisis care and recovery treatment for post-hospitalization,” according to the report.
After nine months of transition, the mental health contractors weren”t providing “adequate wrap-around resources” for severely mentally ill clients, including housing, transportation, education and job training, according to the report.
The grand jury fielded several complaints that “mental health clients were confused when they went to the access centers and did not receive the service they were expecting,” the grand jury stated. Staff at the centers “did not know where to refer the clients during the transition, according to the complaints.
“As of the close of this investigation, this still appears to be the case,” according to the report.
The grand jury recommends that “a contract be written to include ongoing structured care provisions for Level 3 clients,” and found that the county “is not complying with the intent of state law.”
