Page 16 - 2018 MHT Annual Report

ADVOCATING FOR COMMUNITY- BASED SERVICES
The Trust remains a strong advocate for maintaining crucial services for our state’s most vulnerable populations. Examples of community-based services include: housing assistance; assisted living; family
caregiver and natural supports; case management; education and training for
providers and caregivers; peer support; transportation; and mental health and substance abuse treatment.
When community-based services are reduced or eliminated, beneficiaries are more likely to end up in emergency room care, psychiatric hospitals, nursing homes, jail or prison — most often at state expense.
Everything about him changed and we were clueless as to what was going on. He barely got through high school. He had gotten to the point where he wouldn’t leave his bedroom; he wouldn’t go outside to get the mail. One day he came to me and he said, ‘I can’t live my life like this. I’m not going to live like this.’ He has body dysmorphic disorder. He tried to explain something that doesn’t make any sense and you’re trying to understand it, but it’s a spectrum of obsessive compulsive disorders.
— Parents of Trust Beneficiary, Fairbanks
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