Oklahoma lawmakers must take our state’s mental health struggles seriously | Opinion

I’ve learned so much recently about the role independent agencies and nonprofits play in utilizing research to implement successful and transformational pilot programs aimed at serving children.

But I’ve also learned more about the increasing challenges that Oklahoma faces. For instance, advocates tell me that Oklahoma state safety net programs would come “crashing down” if they didn’t receive help from mental health nonprofits.

One reason why these nonprofits have been surprisingly successful is that they have been politically savvy, which requires them to be diplomatic when communicating with lawmakers even as multiple reports highlight the state’s ongoing failure to address our mental health systems’ weaknesses.

So, I would argue, the Legislature and governor are shirking their responsibility to tackle our state’s complex mental health challenges.

We’re lucky that we have nonprofits willing to step in to fill the gap, but there’s only so much they can do without increased legislative intervention and a candid self-assessment that something is incredibly broken.

Grading Oklahoma:What is the status of mental health in our state?

A series of staggeringly bad statistics and recent news reports highlight just how much work our state faces to improve mental health outcomes. It’s time for lawmakers to stop denying how serious the situation is and prioritize more funding for mental health programs, particularly pilot programs that have shown enormous promise.

The Healthy Minds Policy Initiative reports that about 768,000 adult Oklahomans experience mental illness and about 584,000 suffer from a substance abuse disorder. That means nearly 1 in 4 Oklahoma adults experiences mental illness. The Healthy Minds initiative aims to help the state end substance abuse challenges and meet mental health needs.

Zack Stoycoff, the group’s executive director, wrote that Oklahoma ranked 47th worst for the percentage of residents living in a mental health provider shortage area. He said a staggering 94% live in a provider desert, and in 2023, over 1 in 4 of those who wanted care couldn’t access it.

The same group estimated in February 2024 that a $36.8 million investment in the state’s behavioral health workforce would have created $1.8 billion in taxpayer benefits for Oklahomans. Over 1 million more people could have received evidence-based mental health treatment in the next several decades, the group calculated.

We’ve also recently learned that a growing number of parents are refusing to pick up children from emergency rooms, psychiatric hospitals or detention centers. Those children struggle with anxiety or depression, suicidal thoughts, aggressive behaviors or a lack of coping skills to get through various traumas. About 12% of the over 3,300 kids who entered state custody have come because of abandonment, The Frontier reported.

This tragedy is attributable to the patchwork of services that the state provides, as well as a shortage of providers. For instance, only 25 mental health providers in the state had the specialized training necessary to provide the mental health care needed for nearly 21,000 Oklahoma children adopted from foster care, The Frontier’s reporting found.

And, now a newly released report from the U.S. Department of Justice found, “Oklahoma’s state government doesn’t provide sufficient services for people with behavioral health disabilities to prevent unnecessary hospitalization.”

Moreover, it said that Oklahoma City’s police department violated federal laws by engaging “in a pattern or practice of conduct that discriminates against people with behavioral health disabilities.”

The DOJ found that while almost 30,000 Oklahoma County adults have a serious mental illness, the state only operates two crisis centers in that county with a combined total of 32 beds.

The report found that that’s well short of what’s actually needed. Between September 2021 and November 2023, nearly 300 adults were admitted at least five times to private psychiatric hospitals.

The DOJ also reported that “police officers on behavioral health calls were observed in a review of bodycam recordings treating people as possible criminals by checking for arrest warrants ‘even when there was no indication the person had committed a crime,’” and that officers gave some people with behavioral health disabilities “just seconds to comply, leading to avoidable uses of force.”

While Oklahoma City leaders encouragingly said they were reviewing the findings, some top state leaders had the opposite reaction. Rather than take a hard look at themselves in the mirror, they largely rejected the report and tried to politicize our obvious shortcomings.

This is a dire situation, but it would be far worse except for the fact that Oklahoma has benefited greatly from apolitical, research-driven nonprofits and other organizations.

We should be following our providers’ advice about scaling up successful pilot programs, as well as creating team efforts for tackling a range of interconnected health and mental health challenges.

Until recently, the Legislature often listened to research-based experts.

But, now, our dedicated advocates for vulnerable Oklahomans have to focus far too much on protecting the gains we have made, even as we should be empowering them to create even more comprehensive solutions.

If we can’t get on track toward scaling up these programs, the results will be tragic.

John Thompson is a former award-winning teacher at the former John Marshall High School and Centennial Mid-High School. Now retired, Thompson lives in Oklahoma City.