Blue Skies: A job placement service adds to recent gains in mental health care

The menu at San Rafael's Blue Skies Cafe features coffee, muffins, sandwiches and salads.

It's an ordinary lunch counter in a busy health services building, except that the staff is drawn from clients of Buckelew Programs, a North Bay nonprofit agency that assists people afflicted with mental illnesses.

Buckelew is expanding its nationally recognized job placement program, also known as "Blue Skies," into Sonoma County, where the agency already offers housing, referrals and other help for patients and their families.

About 6 percent of the population suffers from a serious mental disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, and mental illness is the leading cause of disability in the U.S. and Canada among people between the ages of 15 and 44.

Fortunately, depression and other common mental illnesses can be managed before they become crises ?? or costly tragedies, such as the police shootings of a Sebastopol teenager and a Santa Rosa man in 2007.

Many of us know that public services have been scaled back because of tight budgets and that Sonoma County currently has no inpatient facility for non-emergency psychiatric care. But we're much less familiar with what services are available in the community.

A group of Buckelew officials met with the Editorial Board this past week to explain some of the services they offer. Among them are housing, including a Buckelew-owned apartment building in Petaluma, and help navigating insurance companies and providers.

The newest local offering is the Blue Skies job placement initiative. Offered for about five years in Marin County, it recently was one of 12 finalists in an international competition sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to identify innovative mental health programs.

Steven Ramsland, the agency's executive director, said the unemployment rate for people with serious mental illnesses is 90 percent. With a little help, many are able to maintain jobs and support themselves.

In Marin County, Ramsland said Buckelew's staffing service places about 100 people annually in jobs ranging from supermarket checkers and home health aides to nurses and lawyers. In addition, the agency runs the cafe and a janitorial service that employs its clients.

Sonoma County is making gains on mental health. Inpatient services may be restored in 2011. Scores of police officers and sheriff's deputies have gone through new training, and the county may add an emergency response team of mental health professionals and social workers. Buckelew's employment and family services are another valuable addition.

About 6 percent of the population suffers from a serious mental disorder, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.