At a public input meeting set for later this month, a committee formed by the Baton Rouge Area Foundation will present a draft plan for the services to be offered at a proposed city-parish mental health facility.
The meeting will take place on Monday, April 27, at 1 p.m. on the first floor of the Main Library, 7711 Goodwood Blvd. At the meeting, BRAF only will outline proposed services for the facility. The presentation will not include specifics such as where the facility could be located, how large it might be or how much it could cost.
BRAF says the proposal includes a crisis call center, use of the crisis intervention team comprising law enforcement officers, a child and adolescent mobile response team, a Capital Area Human Services District mobile adult outreach team, and a new Baton Rouge mobile behavioral health team.
The draft plan comes from the Clinical Design Committee that BRAF formed as part of its initiative to decriminalize mental illness. The committee, which began its work in January, was asked to develop a continuum of crisis services for behavioral health problems. The committee’s chair, Dr. Jan Kasofsky, executive director of Capital Area Human Services District, will present the panel’s recommendations and gather input from the community at this public meeting.
BRAF Director of Communications Mukul Verma says the foundation is working in concert with city-parish officials to address the need for a mental health facility. This afternoon, a public input meeting and consultant presentation was held at City Hall, at which ideas for a mental health facility were presented by Stephen Goldsmith, a Harvard professor, former Indianapolis mayor and consultant with Chicago-based Huron Consulting Group.
“The foundation is working with Metro Council members and other elected officials in town—the district attorney, sheriff and mayor, as well as the coroner,” Verma says. “All of these are related efforts.”
RSVP to attend the April 27 meeting.
—Steve Sanoski
