The following was written by Scott Bates and was first published on courant.com on May 4, 2010

The way Connecticut takes care of those in need is the measure of us all. Our compassion must be coupled with commitment, not only in aiding the sick, the mentally ill, the addicted and others, but helping them recover.

Yet compassionate human services can, and should, be wedded to practicality. Connecticut spends about 27 percent of its annual $18.6 billion budget on human services. About half goes to pay for long-term care of the elderly on Medicaid. But hundreds of millions of dollars of the rest goes to pay for mental health and addiction services, and the infrastructure that supports them, even though there is little proof that many of the services work.

That's why I disagree when people claim that the needs of our citizens require an even bigger financial commitment. Connecticut spends more of its budget than many states on these services, but duplication, a lack of coordination and simply spending money on approaches with no proven effectiveness is rampant throughout state government. We can't afford this.

Connecticut needs accurate, human-services yardsticks: The state uses no agreed-upon way to measure the effectiveness of human services. We can do better. When we build a bridge, we build it to engineering specifications to make sure it is adequate and no lives are lost by its failure. No such standards are applied to mental health or addiction services, yet even more lives may be at stake.

Programs funded by the state should use long-term studies in peer-reviewed, scientific journals to help prove their effectiveness. We owe it to those in mental health residential programs, outpatient counseling programs and addiction services to provide effective and proven care.

Pick one screening tool: Although effective treatment of mental health and substance abuse begins with accurate screening, Connecticut doesn't coordinate clinicians' assessment tools used to measure individual problems, leaving it up to the preference of each department. This means agencies can use dozens of different measures that may assess some problems while ignoring others. Misdiagnosing a mental illness or ignoring substance abuse can be the result, ill-serving the public and wasting taxpayer's money.

Washington state, with a population double that of Connecticut, requires state agencies to use the same highly effective screening tool to measure mental health disorders and substance abuse dependency, including an assessment of suicide risk, for adolescents and adults. This forced clinicians who worked with widely varied populations in different agencies all to get on the same page. Washington has saved money, and perhaps even lives, as a result.

Build communities to solve problems. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a New Yorker article about "Million Dollar Murray," the nickname given to a homeless man in Denver who cost a million dollars a year in emergency and other services because the city managed his homelessness rather than solving it. There are scores of Murrays in Connecticut, yet the state does little to exert the leadership to fix these problems.

Norwich didn't wait for the state, and is an effective example of the good that can be done when a strong, local human services department coordinates regional help for citizens. In past winters, Norwich Human Services has gotten churches, the police department, local businesses, the hospital and even neighborhood pizzerias involved in providing help for the homeless on cold winter nights. Churches take turns providing shelter while volunteers prepare the food. Each night, social workers interview individuals to help find the homeless permanent shelter, evaluate their problems and help them better their lives. The approach is practical, inexpensive and strengthens the entire community. Ignoring these problems, besides being shortsighted, is an expensive approach we can't afford.

Scott Bates is a former visiting professor of government at Connecticut College and currently serves as police commissioner in his native Stonington.

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