Regarding your mental health series: I have been employed at four North Carolina mental health centers as a therapist or a program director, and the system was not broken.

As far as I know, the legislators never really asked for input from the mental health professionals who work in the system and with the clients every day. We all knew it would be a costly lesson. The system we had was stable, effective and could not and did not turn anyone away. We worked closely with the mental health associations. The only weakness I saw was the high turnover among staff members looking for jobs closer to home or that paid salaries that were not insulting.

Good luck to the legislators cleaning up the mess they made.

James Black

Rockingham

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