California’s county mental health system is currently challenged with two leadership problems: supporting new county mental health department directors to enhance their effectiveness as leaders and training future county mental health department directors to fill vacancies as they arise. The county mental health system has historically relied upon an informal process to recruit and train new county mental health directors. However, this informal process no longer appears adequate, resulting in county mental health directorships going unfilled and new county mental health directors feeling uncertain about the knowledge and skills necessary for their new positions.
A number of veteran county mental health directors are also poised for retirement, which will create more vacancies for which there are no apparent replacements. Consequently, a formal process to identify, train, and support new county mental health directors is being developed. Two leadership institutes are planned, one for new directors and one for developing leaders. The project is being developed in conjunction with the University of Southern California School of Public Policy. Future projects will examine consumer and family member leadership.
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