Local Experts React To President’s Call For Mental Health Experts To Serve On ‘Gun Violence’ Panel

During his address, President Obama said no law or set of laws can prevent every act of violence. But he says greater access to mental health care can help.

“We’re going to need to work on making access to mental health care at least as easy as access to a gun.”

And improving that access is something Chris Cline, the vice-president of clinical services at Skyland Trail, says is drastically needed. Skyland Trail is a local 40-bed facility that focuses on mental health treatment for adults. The program is voluntary and more comprehensive than an outpatient facility.

“The current mental health care system is built to ensure that a person who is a threat is guaranteed care, and then the system is only built to support that person until the immediate threat has passed.”

Cline says more insurance plans need to allow for longer stays at hospitals and facilities like Skyland Trail for those experiencing a mental health crisis. He also says the government should look at more education for communities so people can recognize someone in crisis and there are mechanisms to ensure anyone who may pose a risk to the community is getting help quickly.

Other mental health experts recommend improved communication between schools, the mental health system, social services, courts and law enforcement. Thom Bornemann is director of the mental health program for the Carter Center.

“In most of these cases, I think if you go back and deconstruct them and try to understand what happened, you’ll find that they fell through the cracks, that one system knew about it and didn’t communicate to another system. For example, in the Virginia Tech situation the young man had gone before the courts and was ordered into treatment and didn’t go. Well, that’s a gap. That’s a problem.”

Bornemann says there should have been what he calls a warm handoff, where someone would have followed up to make sure the 23-year-old who shot and killed more than 30 people at Virginia Tech received those services. He says it may not have prevented the tragedy, but it’s better than what’s in place now.

Both Bornemann and Cline urge caution when discussing Newtown shooter Adam Lanza, because they say it’s still unknown whether he was mentally ill.