Potential Innovations Projects for Amador County

Amador County Behavioral Health is seeking your input. We would like to know which proposed project you would like to see pursued. You may read about both potential options below and then make your selection. Your feedback is anonymous. If you feel you need more information, please contact Stephanie Hess at shess@amadorgov.org or (209) 223-6308.

Proposed Project #1: Psychiatric Advance Directive (PAD)
This would be a multi-county collaborative Innovations project and would be funded using Innovation dollars at various amounts depending on what each county could contribute. Fresno County is leading this multi-county effort.

An Advance Directive for Psychiatric Care, much like those designed for end of life care, allows for an individual to identify, proactively, how they would like to be treated when they are in a psychiatric crisis and unable to make decisions for themselves.  Without the availability of an Advance Directive for Psychiatric Care for someone who is living with a serious mental illness, there is no opportunity for the individual to provide direction for their own course of treatment when they are incapable to make those decisions. Decisions regarding care and treatment made by well-intended crisis and emergency services providers may not be aligned with an individuals’ preplanned Wellness Recovery Action Plan/Crisis Plan or their desires, nor with any input from the individual.

This project would create an Advance Directive for Psychiatric Care tool for use in California that is based off of using a supportive decision-making model. The tool would be created for use and then implemented and tested within each county/community for learning and best practices development. The project will assess a variety of variables with respect to the Advance Directive for Psychiatric Care, including how the tool is deployed, whether it is used in real-time practice and what barriers and/or challenges exist regarding its use and any related legal implications.

Proposed Project #2: Comprehensive Community Support Model to Address Student Mental Health
The proposed project would make a change to an existing practice in the field of mental health, including, but not limited to, application to a different population. The proposed project would adapt the Student Assistance Program to create a community support model, targeted towards students, families/caregivers and childcare providers, that would provide increased access to mental health services and supports. Using a combination of existing resources and newly established programs, a comprehensive community model would be implemented to support access to services.

Amador County is lacking a comprehensive mental health response to the COVID-19 pandemic specifically when addressing the increased sphere of student and caregiver mental health. COVID-19 has revealed that cohesive systems are not in place to adequately serve and support the mental health needs of the community who are serving students in various capacities. Amador County families are in need of interim supports while appropriate and sustainable services are accessed.

The expanded model would create support networks, leverage existing resources, and develop a countywide system that addresses the entire spectrum of student mental health including parents, childcare providers, and student’s individual needs. This includes linkages to therapeutic support while sustainable and long term mental health treatment is ascertained.