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In 1967, the Florida Legislature provided funds for the planning and construction of a mental health facility on approximately 43 acres on the University of South Florida campus of Tampa. The facility was planned as a regional facility as a complement to Florida state hospitals and the community mental health centers system. Two years later, Senator Louis A. de la Parte announced the expansion of Institute's role as a provider of outpatient services for those who could not afford treatment. By 1974, the first phase was finished - a comprehensive treatment complex with inpatient and outpatient care, partial hospitalisation, emergency care, community consultation and education, activity programs, and clinical and diagnostic areas.

In 1981, the Florida Legislature transferred the Florida Mental Health Institute from the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services to the University of South Florida as a University training/service/research institution. Six years later, the Institute was operationalised as a college within the University of South Florida.

In 1996, The Florida Legislature honoured Louis A. de la Parte for his lifelong commitment to bettering the quality of life for the citisens of the state of Florida and his involvement with mental health services delivery by naming the Florida Mental Health Institute after him.

TODAY
Today, the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute at the University of South Florida continues its mission to strengthen mental health services throughout the state. The Institute provides research, training, education, technical assistance, and support services to mental health professionals and agencies as well as consumers, consumer organizations, and behavioral health advocates statewide. At the state level, the Institute works closely with the Departments of Children and Families (DCF), Corrections (DOC), Elder Affairs (DOEA), Education (DOE), and the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), as well as with members and staff of the State Legislature and providers of mental health services throughout Florida.

Annual appropriation in the State University System budget for the Institute totals $10.7 million, supporting three academic departments with 185 faculty and support personnel. The Institute’s grant and contract total for FY 2000-2001 of $18 million supports 207 additional faculty and staff, occupying three buildings with more than 250,000 square feet of space.

The Institute is comprised of three research departments:

· The Department of Mental Health Law and Policy (MHLP) conducts research and training on the relationship between the legal and the mental health systems and develops innovative approaches to mental health and related services within the criminal and civil justice systems. MHLP is host to the Professional Development Center for professionals working in child welfare. Its Division of Community Mental Health (CMH) focuses on improving behavioral healthcare services through research and education, placing emphasis on effective interventions for special needs populations, including adults with the most severe and disabling mental illnesses.

· The Department of Child and Family Studies (CFS) is committed to enhancing the well being of children and families. Emphasis is placed on the needs of children with serious emotional disturbances or developmental disabilities, and the needs of children at risk because of exposure to abuse, neglect, violence, and long-term poverty. CFS hosts the Institute for the Study of Children’s Futures (Florida Kids Count), the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities, Florida’s Center for Parent Involvement, and the Banyan Center, serving families adopting children with special needs.

· The Department of Aging and Mental Health (AMH) conducts research, program evaluations, training, education, and consultations addressing the immediate and longer term mental health, substance abuse, and support system needs of older adults. The Department also emphasizes the needs of caregivers and families caring for aging family members; health care professionals serving the mental health and substance abuse needs of older persons; and the aging, mental health, and substance abuse service systems.

Specialized Centers
The Institute is home to three federally funded national centers. The USF Center for HIV Education and Research serves health care professionals throughout Florida by providing education, training, and information on the transmission, control, treatment, and prevention of HIV and AIDS and by conducting related research and community outreach.

The Research and Training Center for Children’s Mental Health is dedicated to improving services for children and adolescents with serious emotional disabilities and their families by strengthening knowledge of effective services and systems of care. It seeks to achieve this through an integrated set of research, training, and dissemination activities.

The Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Positive Behavioral Support is a national research and training effort to develop and disseminate effective, practical, and empirically validated procedures for improving support for individuals with disabilities and problem behaviors. The Center is a unified effort of six major research and training sites that involves active collaboration with state training teams, national researchers, family organizations, schools, and service agencies.

The Institute also houses the Policy & Services Research Data Center (PSRDC) in the Department of Mental Health Law and Policy. The PSRDC, active in local, state, and federal research projects, was established to conduct mental health policy and services research through the integration and analysis of large administrative data sets. Studies emphasize issues including access to services, cost and utilization patterns among persons with mental illness and substance abuse, and examination of different financing and insurance systems. Other studies address issues relevant to specific populations, such as the aging, persons with severe and persistent mental illness, and those who are civilly committed. The PSRDC also provides reports to state agencies about trends and changes in the various social services, including mental health, substance abuse, juvenile justice, and child welfare and protection systems.

Library
The Institute’s Research Library, in conjunction with the University of South Florida’s main library (with more than 1,000,000 volumes and extensive Web-based resources), provides access to a broad range of reference materials and services. The Institute’s library, with three full-time staff, provides research support and library instruction for Institute faculty and staff. A variety of specialized library services, including literature reviews, weekly news updates on topical areas, tables of contents, and legal reference services, are available.

The library maintains a specialized collection of mental health materials dealing with local, state, regional, and national issues. The research library also has a core monographic and serial collection on managed behavioral health, health care reform, outcomes and accountability, and public health policy that is unique within the state university system.

The Institute library has a current collection of over 30,000 monographs, 213 serials, 500 multi-media items, and 96 linear feet of archival material. Its electronic collection includes more than 150 online databases and more than 800 full-text online journals covering a wide range of topics such as anthropology, business, economics, health and medicine, and social sciences, as well as a streaming video server with video on mental health issues available online. The library’s Web site provides access to current full-text reports on key research areas in mental health, journal tables of contents, online reference shelf, and special topical pages.

Computer Support
The Institute’s Computer Support Center staff of six, directed by a faculty member, provides hardware and software support to faculty and staff. It is augmented by the University’s Academic Computing Department and Information Technologies Department, which provide additional programming, file transfer and translation, hardware support, and software licensing agreements. The Institute operates its own local area network (LAN) of 450 personal computers. These PCs are currently attached to a Sun Microsystems ULTRA 1 workstation equipped with 256 megabytes of true RAM and 12 gigabytes of available hard disk space, and to a Windows NT Network with 12 servers, each with 256 megabytes of RAM and a total of over 70 Gbytes of usable storage. The LAN is attached to the University’s network and has full file transfer, electronic mail transfer, and Internet 1 and 2 capabilities. Recent building renovations allow LAN access to all Institute personal computers. The Institute’s Database Center has been established to conduct relevant mental health policy and services research through the integration and analysis of large administrative data sets. The main data analysis system is a Sun Ultra 2 enterprise server with 1000 Mbytes of true RAM and 75Gbytes of mass storage. The system is configured to run jobs in the SAS computer language.

Conference Center
The Institute has an on-site conference facility (Westside Conference Center) with five meeting rooms encompassing approximately 5,500 square feet of space. An additional three meeting rooms also available at the Institute bring the total to more than 8,000 square feet, which can accommodate up to 400 people. Teleconference facilities are also available.

Media Center
The Institute operates its own Media Center with three full-time staff. In addition to a full range of audio-visual equipment available to faculty and staff, the Media Center has up-to-date production facilities providing on-site capacity to produce high quality audio/video materials.

About The University of South Florida
Founded in 1956, the University of South Florida has become the second largest university in the Southeast, with a student body of 36,000 on campuses in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota-Manatee and Lakeland, as well as its centers in downtown Tampa, New Port Richey and northern Pinellas County. It offers nearly 200 programs at the undergraduate, master’s, specialty and doctoral levels, including the M.D. With its growing prestige, USF has a dedicated faculty, including 73 Fulbright Scholars and 42 endowed chairs.

USF now ranks among the nation's elite research institutions according to the prestigious Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching which bases its rankings on the range of baccalaureate programs offered at an institution and the number of doctorates awarded annually.

In its most recently completed fiscal year, USF faculty researchers undertook sponsored-research projects totaling more than $171 million, the second largest grants-and-contracts budget among Florida's 10 public universities. That record sum is further evidence of the scientific strength of the university, which is designated "Research I" by the Carnegie Institute.

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