“Jailing the mentally ill is an expedient – but ineffective – solution. “

What is Wellness for Communities:

Founders for Wellness.com have been working on a paradigm to define What is Wellness for Individuals, their Family, their Work Culture, and their Communities. It is a balance between the functions of Mind—Body—Spirit—Social/Emotional—and Lifestyle.

Now, I would like to address a Community What is Wellness and a specific topic of the community -- Safety --as it relates to released Inmates into YOUR COMMUNITY requiring mental health management. Many inmates are incarcerated because of their mental illness, which is not the best place --but often the only place -- to get mental health care.

Here comes a solution from Texas: A community Collaborative Approach amongst agencies and providers that is working. The Mind Function of the What is Wellness for Your Community is how to common sense solve problems. The Spirit Function is the greater awareness most  good people have in being responsible citizens and helping those in need and struggling. The Body Function in this case is the physical health and security of the “body” of the community.  The Social- Emotional Function is the emotive caring- feature, while feeling safe. And the Lifestyle Function relates to the actions a Community Collaborate installed in the community that follow the common sense, spirit, body, and social- emotional principles that preceded it.

Wellness.com as a public service, like all of our educational material, wants the following message to go out with link (**) to a specific article from one of the leaders of this Collaborative.  Colonel (retired) Leo Rios, served as a jail administrator within rural Texas and observed a growing mental health crisis affecting our communities today.  Mentally ill persons are often incarcerated for minor crimes, treated while in jail, and released only to find themselves back in jail because they do not receive adequate mental healthcare within their communities and therefore continue to violate the law – often escalating in the degree of severity.

I invite visitors to Wellnesss.com to make comments and suggestions and pass the word to good people in their respective communities how Collaboration might help define What is Wellness in your community as it relates to this difficult problem.