Carla Rabinowitz Honored with 2018 CIT Advocate/Family Member Award
This Award was given for “efforts to have NYPD receive crisis intervention team (CIT) training.” On August 16, Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) International—a leading organization dedicated to promoting safe and humane police responses to people experiencing a mental health crisis—presented its 2018 CIT Advocate/Family Member Award to Carla Rabinowitz, the advocacy coordinator at Community Access.
Ms. Rabinowitz was recognized for building and leading a coalition of more than 200 agencies, Communities for Crisis Intervention Teams (CCIT NYC) and successfully pushing the New York Police Department (NYPD) to train its officers to more effectively and humanely handle encounters with people in crisis.
When the NYPD launched a CIT program in June 2015, it was the culmination of a coordinated advocacy campaign that owed much of its success to Rabinowitz’s organizational savvy, industriousness, and commitment. To date, more than 6,500 NYPD officers have completed 40 hours of CIT training. However, recognizing that the initiation of this training did not completely put an end to people in emotional distress being shot and killed in police encounters, Rabinowitz has kept working for more change. She focuses on three related goals: ensuring that the training officers receive is high-quality and effective (by invitation, she continues to monitor CIT training sessions); encouraging the NYPD to achieve its goal of training 15,000 officers more quickly; and positioning CIT to be an important part of broader criminal justice and mental health reforms.
When the NYPD first launched its CIT program, it did so in response to an action plan developed by the Mayor's Task Force on Behavioral Health and the Criminal Justice System. Just as Rabinowitz’s CCIT coalition was instrumental in encouraging Mayor de Blasio to form this Task Force, it is now holding it to account, resulting in its reconstitution in April 2018 as the NYC Crisis Prevention and Response Task Force. Both Ms. Rabinowitz and Community Access CEO Steve Coe have been selected to serve on the Task Force.
“I am honored to receive this award from CIT International,” Ms. Rabinowitz said, “I take it as an affirmation that the work we’re doing matters, and I remain as committed as ever to fighting for a fairer, safer New York City for us all. I am grateful to all my partners in the CCIT NYC coalition. We’re not done pushing.”
Community Access expands opportunities for people living with mental health concerns to recover from trauma and discrimination through affordable housing, training, advocacy, and healing-focused services. It is built upon the simple truth that people are experts in their own lives. To find out more, go to http://www.communityaccess.org.
Who’s Watching the Mental Health Providers?
By Warren Berke, Chair, NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Community Advisory Board
Proper Customer Service Can Prevent a Mental Health Crisis
A functioning client with bipolar and anxiety disorders, of a well known mental health service provider in NYC, has to have his regulated drug prescription renewed every thirty days. Being responsible and knowing his need for the medication, he visits his provider and requests the renewal prescription one week prior to finishing up the current doses. The doctor informs him that he will send it electronically to his pharmacy.
Two days go by and the client does not get notification that the prescription is ready. The client calls his pharmacy to check and they inform him that they have not received the prescription. The client calls the provider. They inform him that the prescription will go out “right away.” The client checks with the pharmacy the next day; still no prescription. The client now has two doses of medication left, calls the provider, and is assured the prescription will be sent out. Client checks with the pharmacy the next day; no prescription has been received. With one dose left, the client begins to feel the symptoms of anxiety.
Another day goes by and the client is out of medication due to the non-performance of the provider. Client is getting very anxious, and, for the second time, goes to his provider on Saturday morning. He sees his doctor and is told by the doctor that the prescription will go out that day before the doctor leaves. Client checks with pharmacy early Saturday afternoon, and is told that the prescription has not been received. Client calls provider and is informed the doctor has left and will not be back until Tuesday. Client asks if another doctor can submit the electronic prescription. He is told it is not the provider's policy and to go to the emergency room to get the medication. Client is having an anxiety attack and physical discomfort, goes to the emergency room, waits two hours to request four doses to hold him over until his doctor returns on Tuesday. The doctor at the emergency room checks records and agrees, giving client one dose (Saturday night) and a paper prescription for three more doses.
It is Tuesday, eight days after the client requested the refill of the prescription. The client is informed that the doctor is not in until 5 pm. On the ninth day, the pharmacy receives the prescription.
The provider has failed to deliver the proper services to its client. By shirking their responsibility to provide good customer service, both the doctor and provider created both a human and financial toll.
The Human Toll: a client goes from wellness to crisis, not due to his mental illness, but due to poor customer service delivered by the provider and its doctor. The client had to invest 10 direct hours and three days of discomfort from anxiety, trying to receive the simple, basic service of a prescription refill.
The Financial Toll: the provider will be paid for two visits and the hospital will be paid for an emergency room visit and other services provided. One could speculate that the above services will be invoiced for a couple thousand dollars versus the much lower cost of one office visit, all due to the provider's poor customer service.
Is this an isolated patient experience or does this happen more often than we know? Mistakes happen, but for a provider to not correct the mistake and cause a series of events that result in a mental health crisis that wastes scarce mental health treatment dollars is grossly negligent. The State and City have sophisticated methods to evaluate the level and effectiveness of care being delivered to persons with mental illness. Providing good customer service should be a major part of that equation.
Editor's Note: This article does not necessarily represent the views of City Voices, our readers, or the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. If you live in NYC and something similar has happened to you with your provider, you can call the Office of Consumer Affairs at (347) 396-7194.
March for Dignity and Change for Mental Health, Washington, DC
On October 10, 2016, in a unified voice with supporters, providers, family and friends, people living with mental health conditions called for: an end to unconscionable levels of unemployment, incarceration, homelessness and disability; an end to underfunding of services, harsh practices and fail-first systems in which involuntary status is requirement for care; an end to negative portrayals and scapegoating; an end to a society in which people with mental health conditions die up to twenty-five years before the rest of the population; and a beginning to a new era in which every one faced with mental health challenges is supported to get the right kind of help when needed, and valued in their communities nationwide.
