Mental Health Resources in |
Author Anthony Roadman Geography 350: Data Acquisition in GIS Spring 2008 Abstract With a goal to achieve attainable resources and an
excellence in education for consumers of mental health resources, the
California Institute for Mental health is on the forefront of making these
goals viable to Californians through the establishment and coordination of
programs in public and private organizations and institutions. Introduction The California Institute for Mental Health (CiMH) was established in 1993 with the intent to
"promote excellence in mental health services through training,
technical assistance, research and policy development." It was the specific
intent of the local mental health directors who founded CiMH
that CiMH would work collaboratively with all
mental health system stakeholders. The commitment to collaboration has led
the board to reorganize itself, expanding board membership to include
consumers, family members, and other interested persons representing the
public interest. This paper focuses on the resources that have been
organized to help stakeholders continue to work and develop themselves with
the support of a collaborative mental health system with in the state of Methods An initial map of Californian and its counties was
created to host different layers depending on the needs of the
departments. The California Counties Map by Mental Health
Regions was recreated from a print out of an older version so that layers
could be added, removed, regions could be rezoned, or any other facet that
was desired. The Resource Location map, data provided me in and
Excel spread sheet allowed to edit the data were needed and then Geocode the addresses of the resource locations against a
street layer of The data for the College and University maps was
downloaded form the U.S. Geological Survey website. The data was provided in a delimitated file
that was opened and separated in Excel.
The coordinates provided where in a latitude and longitude format and
were converted to degrees, minutes, and seconds to allow a plot of the XY
coordinates form the attributes table. Results The following map shows resource locations
throughout the counties. Counties that
do not display resource locations may either be in partnership with
neighboring counties or use a central office with in a specified county. Some resource locations are responsible for
multiple counties, regions, or even the entire state. On program in progress is determining the various
types and locations of educational programs specific to mental health
California’s colleges and Universities.
Presently the locations of each institution are being mapped and are
then being assigned identifiers to indicate any and all programs they
possess. Some institutions are
categorizes as colleges and universities and therefore appear on both maps. Conclusion In the short time CIMH has been created,
significant strides have been made in the area of mental health for the well
being of References http://www.CiMH.org http://geonames.usgs.gov/ Paul Veisze |