Mayor Bill de Blasio and First Lady Chirlane McCray yesterday released ThriveNYC: A Mental Health Roadmap for All, a plan designed to support the City’s mental health. The plan outlines a total of 54 initiatives, including 23 new ideas to improve the mental health system.
Based on data from The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the City estimates that at least one in five adult New Yorkers will experience a mental health disorder in any given year. Eight percent of high school students in New York City report attempting suicide, and more than one in four report feeling persistently sad or hopeless. Deaths because of unintentional drug overdose now outnumber both homicide and motor vehicle fatalities.
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In addition to the human toll, failure to adequately address mental illness and substance misuse costs New York City’s economy an estimated $14 billion annually in productivity losses, according to the ThriveNYC release.
“If you look at how mental illness has been addressed over the years, you see a lot of broken promises,” said de Blasio. “You don’t see a concerted, holistic effort to help people be well and stay well. The people of NYC needed something different, something like ThriveNYC. It will take years to address the problem the way it should be addressed. But we need to start now, we need to start aggressively. The people of NYC deserve nothing less.”.
ThriveNYC sets forth a plan to make sure that New Yorkers can get the treatment that they need – and lays out an approach that will improve the mental wellbeing of all New Yorkers. The plan sets forth six principles for achieving long-term change:
- Change the culture by making mental health everybody’s business and having an open conversation about mental health.
- Act early to prevent, intervene more quickly and give New Yorkers more tools to weather challenges.
- Close treatment gaps by providing equal access to care for New Yorkers in every neighborhood.
- Partner with communities to embrace their wisdom and strength and to collaborate for culturally competent solutions.
- Use data better to address gaps and improve programs.
- Strengthen government’s ability to lead by coordinating an unprecedented effort to support the mental health of all New Yorkers.
ThriveNYC argues that similar proactive approaches have dramatically improved public health issues. For example, through a combination of policy bans on smoking, broad public communications, increased federal, state and local excise taxes and increased access to treatment tools, New York City cut the adult smoking rate by 35 percent in about a decade. The youth rate fell even more – by 52 percent.
“We want New York City to be a place where people can live their lives to the fullest,” said McCray. “ThriveNYC is about more services, better services and easier access to services. It’s a plan of action that shows us how to treat mental illness – and also promote mental health.”
Under the initiative, the city will also hire more people capable of providing this specialized type of mental health care. This includes around 400 clinicians, some Master and Doctoral-level, will be hired to work in mental health clinics and primary care practices in the City’s high-need communities. The NYC Mental Health Corps will be able to provide 400,000 additional hours of services when fully staffed.
The City will fund and help train 250,000 New Yorkers in mental health First Aid, teaching them to recognize the signs and symptoms of mental illness and addiction as well how to provide those who suffer from these illnesses with support.
The City will hire 100 School Mental Health Consultants to work with school staff to connect students in need of help to mental health care providers. ThriveNYC is also launching a public awareness campaign to promote a conversation about mental health and let New Yorkers know that services are available.
The initiative is also drawing wide support from both within the de Blasio Administration and within the health care sector.
“Having worked in public service for more than 35 years, for more than five mayors, this is the first time that I’ve seen a thoughtful and concrete plan that lays out the public policy rationale and concrete plan to care for people’s mental and physical health in a thoughtful way,” said Pam Brier, President and CEO of Maimonides Medical Center. “The City’s new Roadmap so obviously makes perfect sense, and it will have an enormous impact on the health and well- being of New Yorkers in a new and profound way.”
James B. Milliken, Chancellor of The City University of New York, said CUNY is delighted to join Mayor de Blasio, First Lady McCray and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in the ground-breaking citywide initiative, ThriveNYC: A Mental Health Roadmap for All.
“This exciting new set of strategies, involving CUNY’s School of Public Health and Hunter’s School of Social Work, will offer much-needed resources for CUNY students and their communities throughout New York,” said Milliken.
In 2016, the City will host the first Mayor’s Conference for Mental Health. The conference will allow cities to discuss mental health and emphasize the importance of including mental wellness in policy development.
