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Once a Model for Nation, Kansas Mental Health System Now in Crisis

By Jim McLean
Published July 25, 2016 at 8:38 PM CDT
Under the Surface: Mental Health in Kansas
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In 1866, Kansas established the facility that would become Osawatomie State Hospital. The state purposely put mental health patients in rural areas because of the belief that a peaceful setting and farm work would act as a treatment, according to Walter Menninger, former president and CEO of the Menninger Clinic. (Photo by Kansas State Historical Society)
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Once upon a time, Kansas was seen as a model when it came to treating people with mental illnesses. Students flocked from around the world to study at the famed Menninger Clinic in Topeka. The state was at the forefront of the movement to move patients out of mental hospitals and into community health centers. And then things started falling apart. As Heartland Health Monitor’s Jim McLean reports, it’s a story marked by great hopes and then broken promises.

Jim McLean is a reporter for the KHI News Service in Topeka and a contributor to Heartland Health Monitor. This is one in an occasional series of stories on the state of mental health in Kansas. Heartland Health Monitor is a reporting collaboration that looks at health issues in Kansas and Missouri. 

 
Health News
Jim McLean
Jim McLean, Executive Editor of KHI News Service, oversees the KHI News Service. From 2005 until 2013, McLean coordinated all communications activities at KHI as Vice President for Public Affairs. The position he now occupies was created as part of a strategic initiative to solidify the editorial and operational independence of the KHI News Service. Prior to coming to KHI, McLean had a distinguished career as a journalist, serving as the news director and Statehouse bureau chief for Kansas Public Radio and a managing editor for the Topeka Capital-Journal. During his more than 20 years in Kansas journalism, McLean won numerous awards for journalistic excellence from the Kansas Press Association, regional chapters of the Society of Professional Journalists and the Kansas Association of Broadcasters. In 1997, McLean and two Capital-Journal colleagues received the Burton W. Marvin News Enterprise Award from the University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism for a series of stories on the state’s business climate. McLean holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Washburn University.
See stories by Jim McLean