Wayne State University’s Developmental Disabilities Institute (DDI) has been awarded a two-year, $150,000 grant from the Ethel & James Flinn Foundation (Detroit) to improve diagnosis and management of mental illness in people with mental retardation. The target audience will be residents in the Macomb and Oakland County area.

People with co-occuring mental retardation and mental illness are one of the major challenges facing the nation’s healthcare systems today. It is estimated that approximately one-third of individuals with mental retardation have some degree of mental illness, leading to a dual diagnosis. Often these individuals’ needs are not met, because one provider does not have experience or skill in diagnosing and treating both conditions.

DDI’s research team will be working with the Macomb Oakland Regional Center (MORC), which serves over 4,500 adults and children with developmental, physical, or psychiatric disabilities. MORC currently serves 1,000 adults with mild or moderate mental retardation, of whom approximately 320 have a dual diagnosis.

Barbara LeRoy, DDI director and Principal Investigator for the grant, says there are two specific goals for this research. “We will evaluate the effectiveness of a new, specialized diagnostic instrument for identifying dual diagnosis; and evaluate the impact of dual diagnosis on an individual’s ability to self advocate.”

Kirsti Reeve, a research associate at DDI and Project Director for the grant, says that many community mental health programs currently struggle with linking this population with appropriate services. Reeve adds, “This project has the long term potential to help up to 200,000 adults with dual diagnosis in the state of Michigan.”

The Developmental Disabilities Institute at Wayne State University is the University Center of Excellence on Developmental Disabilities of Michigan. As a University Center for Excellence, DDI is associated with over 60 universities with whom they share resources. The institute’s mission is to contribute to the development of inclusive communities and quality of life for people with disabilities and their families. DDI has a Community Advisory Council which includes individuals with disabilities, family members, and representatives from government, advocacy and service organizations. The institute currently implements over 20 grants and contracts in education, community support and program evaluation and research.

Wayne State University is a premier institution of higher education offering more than 350 academic programs through 11 schools and colleges to more than 33,000 students in metropolitan Detroit.