Mental Health Advanced Directives

Well, to be brief and to the point, mental health advance directives were built into the Florida State Statutes years ago. Most of the public never knew of how laws related to advance directives could be operationalized. For years, there was no knowledge of it actually being used in Florida. Broward Regional Health Planning Council, Inc. Office of Consumer Affairs saw the opportunity to promote the voice of consumers in Florida by taking action to fill this system gap. Broward Regional Health Planning Council, working in collaboration with the Florida Department of Children and Families’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Program Office of District 10 (Broward County, Florida), funded a representative to seek new resources for consumers by participating at the National Alternatives Conference in the year 2000 held in Nashville, Tennessee. At the conference, a workshop on mental health advance directives was presented by “On Our Own, Inc.”, a program in Maryland. The information distributed was seen as very beneficial for Florida, so the representative brought it back to implement for Florida implementation. A thirty-two page packet was developed to make this valuable resource more available for consumers in Florida and was distributed statewide. As a result, the Advocacy Center for Persons with Disabilities provided funding for trainings in 4 pilot areas in Florida on mental health advance directives. One thing led to another, more positive outcomes occurred. Enthusiasm spread quickly, and awareness increased of the benefits this resource could bring to consumers. The Florida Department of Children and Families saw the benefits and made this an official statewide initiative. Broward Regional health Planning Council specially thanks the many people that were involved in this project!