Kern’s 3-year plan open to public comment, feedback
jdonegan@bakersfield. com
BY JOHN DONEGAN
Mental health leaders in Kern County have unveiled their draft plan for how they intend to spend and staff local programs for the next three years. And they’re looking for your input. The plan, titled Mental Health Services Act, has since its passage by the state Legislature in 2004 been
JENNIE CORRAL 1933-2020
Jennie Corral passed away unexpectedly in May 2020, just as the COVID pandemic began. Due to regulations, no services were allowed. A Memorial Mass has now been scheduled, and will be offered at St. Malachy’s Catholic Church on Thursday, May 18, 2023 at 11 a.m. funded by a 1 percent tax levied against personal incomes over $1 million. This infusion of cash constitutes a third of the budget for Kern Behavioral Health and Recovery Services, for nontraditional mental health services not covered by Medi-Cal. “It helps provide a focus but also for high-needs individuals that may have exited the justice system or incarceration or the hospital that need wraparound care,” said Christina Rajlal, the MHSA Behavioral Health Program supervisor at Kern BHRS. Money is awarded on the condition that counties across the state provide a threeyear plan to the state, with an annual update on how things are going, by June 30. But the plans require 30 days of public input from the community, which can review them and submit comments through a survey on how services can be improved or whether the county is not attending to the right issues. “Or even closing programs that aren’t working like they were intended to,” Rajlal said. “Or maybe there’s dynamics that have changed in the community — the population may change and say it’s time to start new programming.” Officials expect between a $55 and $80 million budget annually for the next three fiscal years, saying it’s difficult to gauge how much funding will be available in a given year. In the last cycle, Rajlal said, Kern BHRS had three areas of focus: housing and people experiencing homelessness with mental illness, crisis response and services for children. “If we think about three years ago, the landscape has changed quite a bit,” Rajlal said. “When we go out into the community and we’re engaging with the public — people are talking about issues in the community like homelessness, substance use disorder, and seeking help for that.” It also funded the expansion of mobile crisis services countywide and development of a 988 call center. They also opened the first of several No Place Like Home locations, which offer permanent supportive housing, which works in conjunction with the Housing Authority of the County of Kern to offer more housing for the homeless. “Looking back at 2022, I would say the defining theme for this year was building,” Director Stacy Kuwahara wrote in an opening letter in the report. “Our focus has taken shape around building a new behavioral health future for Kern County.” In November 2022, the American Psychological Association Commission on Accreditation governing body granted a gold-standard approval for the Kern BHRS Psychology Internship, which has trained 94 psychology interns since its opening in 1999. Officials believe this will help remedy staffing shortages faced in the county’s clinical sector. “Everybody, including in our department, has really faced a lot of challenges in staffing, losing workforce and trying to bring people back on,” Rajlal said. “Especially in clinical staff, it’s hard in a town like Bakersfield to entice people to come and work here.” In their new plan the department includes improved programs for youth, continued focus on infrastructure and individuals experiencing homelessness and a need to address staffing shortages. Rajlal said the rising cost of living in Kern combined with broader burnout trends since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic have made it hard to retain the behavioral health staff needed to actually perform critical services across the county. Pair that with aforementioned issues, and Kern is left with a full plate come next year. “We live differently than our grandparents did, but we are also becoming more comfortable acknowledging the impact of mental health, the value of selfcare, and the integration between all aspects of our health and well-being,” Kuwahara said. To review the plan and submit comments visit kernbhrs.org/mhsa.
Mental health leaders in Kern County have unveiled their draft plan for how they intend to spend and staff local programs for the next three years.