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Judge Milton Mack

๐Ÿ‘ค Speaker
455 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

Filming cases, talking to the family members, talking to persons with mental illness and so forth. And the series was called Waiting for Disaster. I said, the way the mental health system works is you just imagine a train going down the tracks and the bridge is out. So we have two choices. We can dial up the engineer and say the bridge is out, stop the train.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

Or we can park ambulances at the bottom of the ravine and pick up the dead and wounded. Well, that's how the mental health system is working. We wait for crisis, and then we intervene. Now, the 2004 Mental Health Commission report said We live in the recovery era where mental illness is treatable, recovery is possible.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

Or we can park ambulances at the bottom of the ravine and pick up the dead and wounded. Well, that's how the mental health system is working. We wait for crisis, and then we intervene. Now, the 2004 Mental Health Commission report said We live in the recovery era where mental illness is treatable, recovery is possible.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

Or we can park ambulances at the bottom of the ravine and pick up the dead and wounded. Well, that's how the mental health system is working. We wait for crisis, and then we intervene. Now, the 2004 Mental Health Commission report said We live in the recovery era where mental illness is treatable, recovery is possible.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

People with mental illness can lead productive, satisfying lives if they get early treatment. But the system was not designed to permit early treatment. It was designed to wait till that magic moment just before someone actually killed themselves or killed someone else or did something terrible.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

People with mental illness can lead productive, satisfying lives if they get early treatment. But the system was not designed to permit early treatment. It was designed to wait till that magic moment just before someone actually killed themselves or killed someone else or did something terrible.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

People with mental illness can lead productive, satisfying lives if they get early treatment. But the system was not designed to permit early treatment. It was designed to wait till that magic moment just before someone actually killed themselves or killed someone else or did something terrible.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

My effort has been trying to change the system. Ironically, I had thought I'd run into a brick wall with Michigan. And I've been a probate judge for 25 years, and the chief justice asked me to be state court administrator, so I agreed to do it. And when I became a state court administrator, this made me a member of the conference of state court administrators.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

My effort has been trying to change the system. Ironically, I had thought I'd run into a brick wall with Michigan. And I've been a probate judge for 25 years, and the chief justice asked me to be state court administrator, so I agreed to do it. And when I became a state court administrator, this made me a member of the conference of state court administrators.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

My effort has been trying to change the system. Ironically, I had thought I'd run into a brick wall with Michigan. And I've been a probate judge for 25 years, and the chief justice asked me to be state court administrator, so I agreed to do it. And when I became a state court administrator, this made me a member of the conference of state court administrators.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

They drew a paper over here on a topic of some sort. So I volunteered to do a paper on the mental health system and how we can change the system so we intervene early, reduce hospitalization and incarceration, and improve people's lives. They actually chose the paper as the paper for that year that led to creation of a national task force.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

They drew a paper over here on a topic of some sort. So I volunteered to do a paper on the mental health system and how we can change the system so we intervene early, reduce hospitalization and incarceration, and improve people's lives. They actually chose the paper as the paper for that year that led to creation of a national task force.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

They drew a paper over here on a topic of some sort. So I volunteered to do a paper on the mental health system and how we can change the system so we intervene early, reduce hospitalization and incarceration, and improve people's lives. They actually chose the paper as the paper for that year that led to creation of a national task force.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

In the meantime, all of a sudden, logjam broke loose in Lansing. I was able to get a series of bills passed in 2016 and 2018 that changed the way the process works in Michigan. We're seeing real differences now. Are there other things that you do as well? One of the things I do is I do CIT training for law enforcement.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

In the meantime, all of a sudden, logjam broke loose in Lansing. I was able to get a series of bills passed in 2016 and 2018 that changed the way the process works in Michigan. We're seeing real differences now. Are there other things that you do as well? One of the things I do is I do CIT training for law enforcement.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

In the meantime, all of a sudden, logjam broke loose in Lansing. I was able to get a series of bills passed in 2016 and 2018 that changed the way the process works in Michigan. We're seeing real differences now. Are there other things that you do as well? One of the things I do is I do CIT training for law enforcement.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

And I tell them about the new mental health code in Michigan, how it's now an inpatient, it's now an outpatient model in an outpatient world. And when I say that, It's because over 90% of all the treatment for mental illness is on an outpatient basis. So the system should reflect that. We should find a way to help people get help when they need it.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

And I tell them about the new mental health code in Michigan, how it's now an inpatient, it's now an outpatient model in an outpatient world. And when I say that, It's because over 90% of all the treatment for mental illness is on an outpatient basis. So the system should reflect that. We should find a way to help people get help when they need it.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

And I tell them about the new mental health code in Michigan, how it's now an inpatient, it's now an outpatient model in an outpatient world. And when I say that, It's because over 90% of all the treatment for mental illness is on an outpatient basis. So the system should reflect that. We should find a way to help people get help when they need it.

Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ?
Judge Milton Mack's Mission to Reform Mental Healthcare

If you go back to 1963, the Community Mental Health Act, that bill was designed to do two things. Significantly reduce the number of people in hospital and provide an outpatient system of care as an alternative. The outpatient treatment system didn't happen. So what happened? We got 2 million people in America with serious mental illness in jail every year.