Promoting community mental health and wellbeing: An innovative way to build resources in a time of severe mental health funding cuts

Due to severe budget cuts in California, two public mental health agencies in California (Stanislaus, in a rural Central Coast region, and Tri-city, in urban Southern California) decided to radically retool their efforts to build community capacity to promote and measure mental health and wellbeing. The belief was that county departments, no matter how efficient and effective, could not serve all the people who struggle with mental health issues. Instead, the two agencies turned to existing networks in the community that were already helping to meet the needs of people with mental health challenges and strengthen those existing assets. The two agencies worked with research partners to re-think the existing networks of strength and to build upon those structures to support the mental health and wellbeing of their members. The efforts are being guided by an outcomes-based approach (known as Results Based Accountability or RBA). RBA begins with the outcomes that grantees want to achieve and works backwards to develop the appropriate means. Grantees receive technical assistance with leadership, data development, reporting, and using data to track improvements. A primary goal is to include participant perspectives in their own definitions of what it means to be mentally healthy. The notion of community is also being redefined in this effort as communities are not defined by geography but by affinity, mutual support, and collective action. Survey instruments have been developed to assess individual and community well being in both regions. Program evaluation and community level data will be available June 2012.