Behavioral Health Strategic Plan

Download the Strategic Plan

Executive Summary

Ensuring behavioral health is an essential part of health and well-being for children, youth, and families in New Orleans is a step towards ensuring a healthy community. This report outlines the recommendations of community stakeholders and service providers on how to strengthen the behavioral health system.

A central theme is that change can happen by building strong local partnerships and under a thoughtful leadership body. The report addresses challenges and identifies opportunities for improvement in service delivery. By identifying best practices from other communities and working together to incorporate the knowledge into New Orleans’ unique culture, the behavioral health system can function more cohesively as network of service providers.

Core Concepts

  • Developing leadership-

    ensuring a representative body of stakeholders is continually addressing the community’s needs and addressing service gaps;

  • Sharing resources-

    promoting collaboration by sharing funding and developing innovative ways to fund services;

  • Sharing information and knowledge-

    using community data and training opportunities to promote collaboration;

  • Developing behavioral health advocates-

    encouraging professionals, consumers, and family members to advocate for high quality behavioral health care;

  • Multiple-systems working together-

    collaborating to increase communication and create efficiencies that would improve processes and limit costs.

This report offers strategies to incorporate the core concepts above with existing community work to improve the behavioral health system for consumers, families, and professionals in New Orleans.

Table of Contents

  • Executive Summary
  • Introduction
  • Section 1: Background
  • Section 2: Developing a Strategy
  • Section 3: Coordinating Behavioral Health Services
  • Section 4: Coordination with Other Systems
  • Section 5: Advocacy & Consumer Engagement
  • Section 6: Professional Development
  • Section 7: Promoting Evidence-based Practices, Data Collection & Evaluation
  • Section 8: Policy & Funding
  • Recommendations & Closing
  • Works Cited