After each recent mass shooting, there is a call for increasing mental health services. Let's pretend the current HHS (Health and Human Services) secretary has had to resign. You have just been nominated and confirmed by the president as the next HHS secretary for the US government. How will you address the mental health crisis? You must be cognizant of the use of taxpayer dollars (not for your own use but for services overall) and your position in a country of competing needs. While for some it may be tempting, please do not make this a political discussion about the current administration. Focus on providing services/programs/prevention/interventions to deal with the concerns.

As the next HHS (Heath and Human Services) secretary for the US government, I would focus on pursuing an ambitious scientific research agenda into mental illnesses and on counteracting stereotypes and fostering awareness of neurological disease.
My first step would be to lobby for heightened research spending. Mental illnesses are increasingly recognized as being tethered to distinctive biomarkers and environmental conditions. Yet the research budget for devastating diseases such as schizophrenia is alarmingly small given the momentous social and individual costs they can have. Mental illness constitutes a public health crisis that needs to be researched at the level of its genetic and environmental determinants.
With respect to the stigma attached to mental health issues, I would launch an all-out effort to remind people that the brain is very much a part of the body, its central role in shaping consciousness notwithstanding. Outdated, disproven, pseudo-scientific ideas that mental health is "all in the head" still need to be dispelled. Heightened knowledge of biomarkers is essential. Toward this end, I would embark upon a social-media driven campaign to combat ignorance about brain disease.
Finally, although substantial strides have been made toward the achievement of healthcare parity—that is, equal treatment of diseases that arise in the brain relative to diseases in other parts of the body—much remains to be done. New laws that respect the rights of mentally ill people to human dignity, and penalties for people who neglect these rights, are needed. Education in schools to reduce stigma at an early age would be a vital part of this effort.
Through a threefold approach that emphasizes an ambitious research agenda in medical science, the correction of false stereotypes, and legal and regulatory reform, I would attempt to counter the devastating, under-researched problems associated with mental health.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5412319/