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Mental health financing : mental health policy and service guidance package

FUNK, Michelle
et al
2003

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"This module provides practical guidance to assist countries with the financing of mental health care. The aims of the module are to: (1) provide a conceptual introduction to key issues related to the financing of mental health care; (2) set out a step-by-step approach addressing these key financing issues, recognizing that the steps may need to be adapted and tailored to the circumstances of each country; (3) link the steps to activities defined in other modules. The Introduction emphasizes financing as a major driver of the system and indicates the need to integrate this function with policy-making and planning. Steps are then presented to assist countries in their financing efforts. These steps are not intended to be prescriptive or rigid. Instead they identify critical activities related to financing which should be addressed in order to build and sustain a mental health system that meets priority needs and produces desired outcomes. Barriers to mental health financing are also reviewed"
Note: This module is part of a guidance package that consists of a series of interrelated user-friendly modules that are designed to address the wide variety of needs and priorities in mental health policy development and service planning. Its recommended for use by policy makers, service planners representatives or associations of families and carers of people with mental disorders

Review of the present situation in special needs education

HEGARTY, Seamus
1995

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An overall comparison between the two situations - 1986 and 1993 - reported here and in the previous report allow for some guarded optimism. Most countries provided some information on policies but varied greatly in the amount of detail offered. Special educational provision is more firmly located within regular education, at school and the administrative levels, than before and has greater legislative underpinning. Within the policy statements, themselves, the most common strands related to : developing the individual's potential, integration and necessary steps for implementation. Regarding legislation, most countries did include special needs provision in the same regulatory framework as general education; the most common reason given for excluding particular children was severity of disability. Much remains to be done and there is no room for complacency. Many countries face fiscal and personnel constraints, and maintaining let alone increasing existing investment in special educational provision will not be easy. A word of caution : even where resources are not the central issue, the pressures created by the general school reforms taking place in many countries may reduce the priority given to speical educational provision. However, progress has been made, despite the many difficulties.

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