Proposed cuts to community mental health centers in Illinois continues a disturbing trend in the state’s lack of commitment to helping families and individuals experiencing a mental illness, says Christopher R. Larrison, a University of Illinois expert on community-based mental health services.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. Proposed cuts to community mental health centers in Illinois continues a disturbing trend in the state's lack of commitment to helping families and individuals experiencing a mental illness, according to a University of Illinois expert on community-based mental health services. Christopher R. Larrison, a professor of social work at Illinois, says the state of Illinois has overseen a 'decimation' of community mental health services thanks to decades of neglect. 'For community mental health services, it hasn't just been just the last three years of cuts that have proved crippling, it's been the last 30-plus years of inadequate funding that preceded it,' Larrison said. 'As a result, community mental health centers, especially those in the rural areas of the state, are really struggling. Any more cuts or lack of clarity about when the state is going to pay its bills, or what's going to get reimbursed, could force a lot of these places to severely limit services or possibly have to shut down.' If that happened, Larrison said, there would be a dearth of providers in some of these rural communities to serve people with serious mental illness. 'Imagine a small rural community where there are people with schizophrenia left untreated,' he said.
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