I just read an article in the NYTimes 8/3/2011 titled "Teenager's Path and a Killing put Spotlight on mental Care" about a young man with a violent past, severe mental illness and trauma history, who killed a staff member at a transitional housing shelter in Massachusetts. It's a tragic story that, as you follow the paper trail, led to the inevitable conclusion of murder. Foster homes, instability, violence, psychiatric care, criminal charges.... This young man was known within the system, but the parts of the system didn't communicate with each other. The police didn't know about the mental illness, the psych hospital didn't know about the violence, the homeless shelter didn't know about any of it. A friend of mine is working on a city-wide system to enroll mentally ill clients at the hospital into a program where their information is shared with other city agencies. So if the police show up, they'd be able to find out that this individual is schizophrenic and receiving treatment, and can connect with their treatment provider, creating a continuum of care. I acknowledge that it is a lot of information for government agencies to have about you, but they already have it and it does them no good to have it all, locked away on a computer somewhere, if it can't be used to actually help. This case is just one of many that exemplifies why information sharing is vital, especially as funding for mental health services is cut.
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