John Moore, Director of Deaf Mental Health Services (Columbus, Ohio) was the notable speaker at the Deaf Empowerment program. Kim Davis, the Workshop Coordinator for MCDHH looked on.
Nearly a year ago on October 11, 2008, we had a meeting. We had officials from DMH there. After John Moore finished the presentation and discussion, we opened up for more discussions about lack of mental health services in Missouri.
Most of the discussion focused on DMH (Missouri Department of Mental Health) and its failures to meet the real needs of the Deaf Community.
During our discussions, we found out that $539,000.00 had been appropriated for interpreting services alone.
We made recommendation that they halve the budget and hire four deaf mental health professionals. The deaf consumers would benefit greatly from having deaf mental health professionals.
Today is September 22, 2009! Nothing had developed and they have IGNORED our suggestions.
They even lied to us about hiring a replacement after Barry Critchfield left. I was on the committee and I saw with my own eyes that they would hire a deaf person to fill in that position.
Instead they hired an interpreter.
It is a BIG joke to the deaf community!
