PBS Documentary Features MHM Client and Medical Director
Frontline Program, "The New Asylums," May 2005. View the program at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/asylums/view/
Described by FRONTLINE reporters as "the new asylums," correctional facilities are now the center of increasing media attention and public concern for the treatment of mentally ill inmates. Recently, the PBS news documentary program, FRONTLINE, focused on the treatment services dedicated to addressing this mounting problem by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC). The program featured inmates in treatment, mental health professionals who provide services, as well as ODRC administrators who must meet the mental health needs of a growing number and percentage of inmates, while at the same time promoting public safety and budgetary control.
MHM Correctional Services, Inc. (MHM) provides psychiatric staff and services for 18 of the 23 total facilities in Ohio. During the program, MHM Medical Director, Gary Beven, MD, recounts the progress that has been made in Ohio, while describing the special treatment challenges facing correctional mental health. MHM’s clients, Director Reginald Wilkinson and Mental Health Bureau Chief Debbie Nixon-Hughes, talk about the important role that correctional agencies must now play within a broad array of state and community-based agencies serving the severely mentally ill.