The Imperative of Transformational Change

Supporting Transformational Change in Mental Health Care

In prioritizing prevention and early intervention to reduce severe and disabling mental illness, the MHSA lists seven outcomes for improvement: suicide, incarceration, school failure, unemployment, prolonged suffering, homelessness, and the removal of children from their home.

Californians continue to experience unacceptably high rates of suffering in each domain. The costs and consequences associated with incarceration and homelessness, in particular, are emerging as priorities for the public. The complexity of these heart-breaking problems, in turn, requires public officials to move “upstream” to address root causes.

More broadly, public agencies are under pressure to respond to rising social and economic inequalities and the harmful health impacts they can have on vulnerable populations, notably reducing people’s capacity to manage and recover from adversity.

Transformational Change Defined

Transformational change restructures organizational operations and cultures, policy frameworks, funding streams, programs, and interventions to accelerate the pace and scale of improvements. Transformational change strategies produce exponential rather than incremental advances. Transformed systems are adaptive, learning, and sustainable.

Transformation in public systems requires deeper relationships among government agencies serving the same individuals, families, and communities. Agencies must overcome organizational silos, a compliance-only mentality, and a scarcity view of resources.

For state government, transformation means aligning statutes, regulations, funding, and other policy infrastructure to enable and encourage local collaboration.