Behavioral Health Action Network

Louisiana Public Health Institute’s Mental Health and Substance Abuse initiative is one of many interventions being implemented to encourage healthy behavior change in our state.

Mental Health and Substance Abuse programs of LPHI promote the development and sustainability of service capacity of area providers through analysis, planning, decision-making and advocacy around changes to policy, programming and resource allocation. The main initiative currently in place is the Behavioral Health Action Network (BHAN) of Greater New Orleans, which is comprised of key behavioral health stakeholders and endorsed by Dr. Roxanne Townsend, Secretary of the Louisiana Department of Health & Hospitals, Dr. Kathleen Crapanzano of the Louisiana Office of Mental Health, USPHS Commander Tom Scheidel of the Department of Health and Human Services, and Dr. Kevin Stephens of New Orleans Department of Health.

About Behavioral Health Action Network

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita notably worsened the state of behavioral health services in Louisiana; particularly in the Greater New Orleans region. Simultaneous loss of hospitals and clinics from flooding, loss of behavioral health professionals due to evacuation and displacement and elevated population rates of serious mental illness converged to overwhelm the public and private systems of care. The combined effect of an increased need for psychiatric services and decreased capacity to provide them is felt in overcrowded emergency rooms, in the expanded role of the police in handling acutely psychotic people, and finally, in strain on the communities and families of those not receiving adequate care.

The Behavioral Health Action Network of Greater New Orleans (BHAN) convened by the Louisiana Public Health Institute (LPHI) is supported with private, non-profit foundation grants. Our charge is to facilitate the recovery of a comprehensive system of mental health and substance abuse services through private and public agency coordination that will simultaneously meet the needs of the community and reflect the mission and goals of the participating partners.

Historically, Louisiana’s behavioral health services encompassing mental illness, substance abuse and co-occurring disorders—have been a fragmented system of private and public agencies governing scant resources with inadequate communication and coordination between the parts and little adherence to evidence-based practices. The pre-storm health statistics in Louisiana were among the worst in the nation and if the system is rebuilt as it was, we expect the same unacceptable health outcomes will result.

Our Mission

BHAN is dedicated to facilitating the recovery of comprehensive behavioral health services in the Greater New Orleans area through public and private partnerships.

We share a vision of a comprehensive, regional system of accessible behavioral health services, responsive to the cultural diversity of Greater New Orleans residents.

Behavioral Health Action Network Goals

• Embody a regional, systems approach to behavioral health policy to restore services from prevention and resilience building to inpatient psychiatric and addictive disorder care.

• Establish a collaborative culture of openness, mutual respect and accountability.

• Honor the principles and missions of all those involved as we seek to realign and redeploy resources and relationships between members to best meet identified needs.

• Strive for a system that actively engages people with mental illness into a system of community-based care.

• Instill transparency and accountability into the delivery of effective behavioral health services.

• Promote evidence-based best practices, informed by current population estimates and service utilization data.

• Implement actions to create coordinated systems of care, diminishing duplication and promoting efficient and accessible delivery of services.

• Provide technical assistance to committed partners for implementation of transforming initiatives.

• Define problems and objectives quantitatively through a gap analysis.

• Identify new funding, workforce and knowledge flows to implement programs of care.

For more information concerning LPHI’s Mental Health and Substance Abuse Initiatives please contact Sarah Hoffpauir, shoffpauir@lphi.org.