Despite ongoing efforts by mental health care professionals to improve Illinois’ mental health care system, the National Alliance of Mental Illness issued the state a grade of a ‘D’ on its 2009 report, “Grading the States: A Report on America’s Health Care System for Serious Mental Illness,” released on March 11. This comes as a slight improvement from its 2006 report that issued Illinois an “F.”

Christine Armstrong, public relations director for the alliance, said the report assesses performance and practices in four key categories: health promotion and measurement; financing, core treatment and recovery services; consumer and family empowerment; and community integration and social inclusion.

Among the chief concerns is the lack of funding available for mental health care in Illinois and throughout the country. Funds for Illinois mental health care programs are allocated by state legislators.

“There simply is not enough funding to provide adequate services to mentally ill individuals,” said John Sweeny, professor of psychiatry, neurology and psychology at the University of Illinois-Chicago. “With the funding available right now [mental health care providers] are only able to treat patients who reach a point of crisis, but we are not able to provide enough consistent and preventative treatment to help them avoid reaching those points of crisis.”

Sweeny said the lack of early intervention for mentally ill individuals is also a major concern.

“Most individuals begin exhibiting signs of mental illness as they reach college age,” Sweeny said. “But the lack of early intervention programs is causing individuals to fall through the cracks, and they are not properly diagnosed until their illness has manifested itself into very serious, often grave situations.”

Working to increase early intervention programs in Illinois would help stabilize mental health care patients at the beginning of their illness, offsetting the occurrences of crisis situations, Sweeny said. Crisis situations are different for each patient but often lead to self-destruction and harmful behavior, including physical harm and suicide attempts.

These are behaviors that Star Roberts, head of the National Alliance of Mental Illness Illinois mission committee and crisis helpline volunteer, knows all too well. Roberts said her son suffered from bipolar disorder and committed suicide several years ago. Roberts said along with additional funding, the Illinois mental health care system is in desperate need of proper housing facilities for mentally ill patients.

“Right now the mentally ill are just being put into nursing homes,” Roberts said. “In a way, those are just warehouses. And in other cases, patients are being sent back out to the streets because there are not adequate facilities. There need to be more group homes and more beds at state mental hospitals.”

Roberts said funding levels are decided by state legislators, and advocates are doing everything possible to make Illinois legislators aware of the need for additional funding for mental health care programs.

But as Illinois continues to face a deepening budget crisis, advocates fear that cuts to the mental health care system will increase and that things will get worse before they get better.

“In Illinois, we are talking about a system that was not adequately funded to begin with, and now [with] the projected budget cuts its only going to get worse,” said Rob Honberg, director of policy and legal affairs with the alliance. “We gave Illinois a D, but it looks to us that they are moving in the wrong direction. In 2006 they got an F, and, if anything, we are concerned they are reverting back in that direction.”

Honberg said urgent needs within the Illinois mental health care system include ending warehousing practices in nursing homes and addressing problems with the new fee-for-service system in Illinois.

Despite repeated requests for a response from state officials, numerous representatives at state-run mental health care facilities refused to comment about the grade issues by the National Alliance of Mental Illness or about the state of mental health care in Illinois.