Push for better mental health services long enough and you will hear that question.

This blog will help explain ways in which the money we have for mental health services could bring about greater returns and explore how to increase those resources.  I will focus on the impact on Dane County residents of decisions made at all levels of government and will include reports of on-the-ground efforts by local advocates to help bring about reform in mental health services.

I know the mental health system at personal and professional levels.  My sister was first hospitalized with a diagnosis of schizophrenia when she was 14.  She is 74, so I have first-hand knowledge of improvements in care and the continuing failures of the system.  I was a reporter for Psychiatric News, the bi-weekly publication of the American Psychiatric Association, specializing in health care economics and community psychiatry. Katie L Mulligan

NOTE:   A disproportionate number of people in the criminal justice system have a mental illness.   People advocating for family members and others with a mental illness are seeing that intersection and urging criminal justice reform.  It is also clear that taxpayer dollars are being wasted because of the current jail and prison systems.  I will be adding news about criminal justice reform to this blog.