• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
MENUMENU
MENUMENU
  • Home
  • About
    • Contact Us
    • FlaglerLive Board of Directors
    • Comment Policy
    • Mission Statement
    • Our Values
  • Live Calendar
  • Submit Obituary
  • Submit an Event
  • Support FlaglerLive
  • Advertise on FlaglerLive (386) 503-3808
  • Search Results

FlaglerLive

No Bull, no Fluff, No Smudges

MENUMENU
  • Flagler
    • Flagler County Commission
    • Beverly Beach
    • Economic Development Council
    • Flagler History
    • Mondex/Daytona North
    • The Hammock
    • Tourist Development Council
  • Palm Coast
    • Palm Coast City Council
    • Palm Coast Crime
  • Bunnell
    • Bunnell City Commission
    • Bunnell Crime
  • Flagler Beach
    • Flagler Beach City Commission
    • Flagler Beach Crime
  • Cops/Courts
    • Circuit & County Court
    • Florida Supreme Court
    • Federal Courts
    • Flagler 911
    • Fire House
    • Flagler County Sheriff
    • Flagler Jail Bookings
    • Traffic Accidents
  • Rights & Liberties
    • Fourth Amendment
    • First Amendment
    • Privacy
    • Second Amendment
    • Seventh Amendment
    • Sixth Amendment
    • Sunshine Law
    • Third Amendment
    • Religion & Beliefs
    • Human Rights
    • Immigration
    • Labor Rights
    • 14th Amendment
    • Civil Rights
  • Schools
    • Adult Education
    • Belle Terre Elementary
    • Buddy Taylor Middle
    • Bunnell Elementary
    • Charter Schools
    • Daytona State College
    • Flagler County School Board
    • Flagler Palm Coast High School
    • Higher Education
    • Imagine School
    • Indian Trails Middle
    • Matanzas High School
    • Old Kings Elementary
    • Rymfire Elementary
    • Stetson University
    • Wadsworth Elementary
    • University of Florida/Florida State
  • Economy
    • Jobs & Unemployment
    • Business & Economy
    • Development & Sprawl
    • Leisure & Tourism
    • Local Business
    • Local Media
    • Real Estate & Development
    • Taxes
  • Commentary
    • The Conversation
    • Pierre Tristam
    • Diane Roberts
    • Guest Columns
    • Byblos
    • Editor's Blog
  • Culture
    • African American Cultural Society
    • Arts in Palm Coast & Flagler
    • Books
    • City Repertory Theatre
    • Flagler Auditorium
    • Flagler Playhouse
    • Flagler Youth Orchestra
    • Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra
    • Palm Coast Arts Foundation
    • Special Events
  • Elections 2022
    • Amendments and Referendums
    • Presidential Election
    • Campaign Finance
    • City Elections
    • Congressional
    • Constitutionals
    • Courts
    • Governor
    • Polls
    • Voting Rights
  • Florida
    • Federal Politics
    • Florida History
    • Florida Legislature
    • Florida Legislature
    • Ron DeSantis
  • Health & Society
    • Flagler County Health Department
    • Ask the Doctor Column
    • Health Care
    • Health Care Business
    • Covid-19
    • Children and Families
    • Medicaid and Medicare
    • Mental Health
    • Poverty
    • Violence
  • All Else
    • Daily Briefing
    • Americana
    • Obituaries
    • News Briefs
    • Weather and Climate
    • Wildlife

Grand Jury Rips Florida’s Mental Health System, Citing ‘Deficiencies in Funding, Leadership and Services’

December 11, 2020 | FlaglerLive | 3 Comments

Add to the list: a shoddy mental health system. The slide was shown at a suicide-prevention town hall in palm Coast last year. (© FlaglerLive)
Add to the list: a shoddy mental health system. The slide was shown at a suicide-prevention town hall in palm Coast last year. (© FlaglerLive)

A statewide grand jury studying school safety issued an interim report Thursday that tore into Florida’s mental-health system, saying that “deficiencies in funding, leadership and services related to mental health care tend to turn up everywhere like bad pennies.”




“This grand jury has received a great deal of evidence and testimony regarding financial deficiencies, conflicts between various agencies over information sharing and privacy, inadequate or inefficient provision of services and a number of other serious problems,” the report said. “To put it bluntly, our mental health care ‘system’ — if one can even call it that — is a mess, and we have formulated a spate of recommendations for straightforward improvement and further study in this critical area.”

The 27-page document posted late Thursday afternoon on the Florida Supreme Court website was the third interim report issued by the grand jury, which the court impaneled in February 2019 at the request of Gov. Ron DeSantis. The request came a year after a gunman killed 17 students and faculty members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.

While the interim report Thursday addressed several issues, it focused most heavily on what the grand jury saw as problems in the mental-health system. The accused Parkland shooter Nikolas Cruz, a former Marjory Stoneman Douglas student, had received treatment for mental-health issues — leading to scrutiny of the mental-health system.

The grand jury said in the report that it is “clear to us that inadequately addressed mental health issues have the peculiar potential to spiral out over time into criminal acts and violent behavior resulting in serious injury and loss of life.”




While acknowledging that “these are hard problems,” the report described a disjointed, under-funded system and called on the Legislature to form a commission to study mental-health services. It suggested that such a commission could be similar to a panel known as the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, which the Legislature formed after the 2018 shooting to investigate school safety and make recommendations.

“It should be apparent to any reader of this report that this grand jury has only scratched the surface of the myriad difficulties involved in comprehensively addressing the sad state of mental health care services in the state of Florida,” the report said. “While a comprehensive examination of this system would lie within our jurisdiction, it would take more time than we have at our disposal considering the other items the governor has also placed in our mandate. For this reason, it is the opinion of this grand jury that the Florida Legislature should appoint a commission to specifically examine the provision of mental health services in the state of Florida.”

The report also pointed to funding as an issue, saying Florida provides less money per-capita than any other state for mental-health care and treatment.

“Even among states that do not collect income taxes, Florida is dead last,” the report said. “It is therefore important to highlight from the outset that correcting the deficiencies in our system of mental health care will require additional funding, but the Legislature must make this financial commitment intelligently so as to ensure that whatever funds it does provide are not wasted.”

Also, the grand jury said the provision of mental-health services is “spread out over state, federal and local agencies, each with different missions, priorities, metrics and definitions of success, making for treatment ‘plans’ that are unfocused, inconstant and often ineffective at the individual level.”

“Concerns about compliance with state and federal privacy statutes often prevent effective interagency cooperation,” the report said. “Because each agency cannot see the ‘big picture’ of a person’s complete mental health history, there is no real way to develop or carry out any kind of a comprehensive plan for treatment and follow-up services.”

–Jim Saunders, News Service of Florida

The Grand Jury Report:

Click to access mental-health-grand-jury.pdf

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
You and your neighbors collectively read our articles about 25,000 times each day (that's not a typo) with up to 65,000 daily reads during emergencies like hurricanes. Flagler County residents rely on FlaglerLive for essential, bold and analytical journalism that cannot be found anywhere else. But we depend on your support. Please join our December fund drive! If you donate the cost of a scoop of ice cream, you will be helping us continue to provide comprehensive local news and honest, serious journalism for our community. If you can donate more or become a monthly donor, even better. Donations are tax deductible since FlaglerLive is a 501(c)(3) non-profit news organization. Donate by clicking anywhere in this box. Think of it as buying a scoop, in every sense of the term!  
All donors' identities are kept confidential and anonymous.
   

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. mark101 says

    December 12, 2020 at 10:38 am

    Well if you go research other states, most have issues of handling mental health. CA is also not immune. ex. More than 4,000 Kaiser Permanente mental health professionals in California launched a five-day strike on Monday at Kaiser facilities across the state.”We’re striking because the problems that plague Kaiser’s mental health system keep getting worse,” said Kenneth Rogers, a Kaiser psychologist, in a statement.”. Fl like all the states need to step up and do whats right for these families and individuals, but of course it all comes down to whose going to pay for it and where does the money come from, typical

    Reply
  2. BIG Neighbor says

    December 14, 2020 at 6:57 am

    How can we stand by and watch the attacks against social media gain traction as a consequence of people getting banned from twitter when along we know for a fact the toxic tragedy in all this is the costs in terms of our wayward youth, lost in the collateral damage of addiction and suicide? What good are access and learning plans when youth are distracted by the emotional turbulence in friends and family, stirred by the toxic clouding that has recent media trending so profitable and information so rare? It makes me cringe to wonder how many children get harassed at home or on line when they try to embrace new values of diversity and inclusion being promoted at school.

    Reply
  3. Bambi says

    December 14, 2020 at 3:08 pm

    Unfortunately we keep electing mentally ill leaders that make these decisions as to where to send resources.

    Reply
  • politis matovina attorneys for justice personal injury law auto truck accidents
  • grand living realty

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Advertisers

  • grand living realty
  • politis matovina attorneys for justice personal injury law auto truck accidents

Recent Comments

  • John on Behind the Divorce, a Bitter, Threat-Ridden Clash Between Waste Pro and Palm Coast Over Recycling Bins
  • Wow on Mom Arrested After Witnesses Report her Brutalizing Her 7-Year-Old Child on A1A
  • tulip on Voters Approved an Amendment For Racial Equity in Districts. DeSantis Wants It Ignored.
  • Fritz B. on Palm Coast Fines Waste Pro $125 For Every Recycling Bins It’s Taking Back and Threatens Litigation
  • Bradley Boyd on Its Streets Degrading, Palm Coast Looks for Electric Vehicles to Pay Their Fair Share of Road Taxes
  • tulip on Palm Coast’s Belk Converted Into One of 16 Outlet Stores as Company Struggles
  • The Geode on Voters Approved an Amendment For Racial Equity in Districts. DeSantis Wants It Ignored.
  • Jane Elizabeth K on Behind the Divorce, a Bitter, Threat-Ridden Clash Between Waste Pro and Palm Coast Over Recycling Bins
  • Pogo on The Daily Cartoon and Live Briefing: Friday, June 2, 2023
  • Tax on Liberal Resposibility? on Its Streets Degrading, Palm Coast Looks for Electric Vehicles to Pay Their Fair Share of Road Taxes
  • John Stove on Behind the Divorce, a Bitter, Threat-Ridden Clash Between Waste Pro and Palm Coast Over Recycling Bins
  • Tony on Behind the Divorce, a Bitter, Threat-Ridden Clash Between Waste Pro and Palm Coast Over Recycling Bins
  • Tony on Mom Arrested After Witnesses Report her Brutalizing Her 7-Year-Old Child on A1A
  • Shark on 251-Unit Wilton Apartment Project Breaks Ground in Town Center, Employing 300 During Construction
  • jake on Its Streets Degrading, Palm Coast Looks for Electric Vehicles to Pay Their Fair Share of Road Taxes
  • Kris on 251-Unit Wilton Apartment Project Breaks Ground in Town Center, Employing 300 During Construction

Log in