Mental Health Care
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* Re Ventura County’s system of mental health care.
If anything is to be learned from the turmoil of the past two years, it is the value of an open process, nondefensiveness and the reporting of honest facts.
From its inception, legislation for the Ventura Model promised more than the system delivered. Yet it was characterized and promoted as highly successful. The money attached to it made it sacrosanct. Critics were maligned as “adversarial” or “rabble-rousers.” Yet they were the heartbeat of the system, taking distress calls from other families.
Money and vested interests, not client care, appeared to fuel the merger of the Mental Health and Social Services departments. Those fears are validated by a recent document from the Cathie Wright Center for Technical Assistance to Children’s Systems of Care. It instructs California counties in practices to convert non-federally funded programs to ones funded by Medicare and MediCal by running money through Mental Health.
It is a shockingly flagrant and brazen money-laundering scheme.
David Gudeman talks and demonstrates a concern for quality client care. He deserves permanent status as director of Behavioral Health. Many believe that, with time and given the chance, he will deliver an authentic Ventura Model program.
LOU MATTHEWS
Ventura
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