by Jolene Toves

Guam - Governor Eddie Calvo has appointed 16 representatives from various Government of Guam agencies tasked to work write and an implement a strategic plan to provide more effective behavioral health services for Guam's military population.

It's called the Local Action Team, tasked to evaluate behavioral health services for Guam's military population. And the team is led by Peter Alexcis Ada of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, who said, "This is the policy making body this is the we are we will be directing the policy we are going to put a timetable so we can be completed before the end of the year. What kind of services are not working and what kind of services are needed strengthening a lot of us are looking at what are the services that we could better?"

The team is focused on military service members, veterans and their families, developing policies and strategic plans to provide more effective behavioral health services. "We are taking all topic matters primarily guidelines looking at prevention as to what can be done to assist these families we want to be proactive rather than reacting to circumstances," he said.

The team is led by DMHSA's federal counterpart the substance abuse mental health administration or SAMHSA. DMHSA's adult counseling branch psychiatric social worker supervisor Nadine Cepeda said, "SAMHSA does a lot of work for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, so this is one of the component that and sees there's a need for veterans and their families because there are gaps and lapse. More and more the states and territories are actually seeing more of an increase in the need of services to provide these behavioral health services to these veterans and their families so that's what they are doing actually going out and providing the technical assistance and academy."

Members of the team will be selected to attend an academy training and return to develop a state plan.