News and Commentary from the
Treatment Advocacy Center
May 2020
Below is a summary of recent developments and compelling news stories from across the country highlighting America's broken mental health treatment system and how to fix it.
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A Broken Mental Health care System and
COVID-19
The Treatment Advocacy Center's Executive Director John Snook and Director of Research Elizabeth Hancq were interviewed for the mental health blog Crisis Talk. John and Elizabeth discuss the need to create a system to protect those with severe mental illness during the COVID-19 pandemic, while acknowledging the additional strain this pandemic is putting on our already broken mental healthcare system. Read the rest of the article here.
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Honoring New Torrey Advocacy Commendation Recipient
Iowan June Judge is the recipient of this year's Torrey Advocacy Commendation. Judge spent her life working to understand her two sons' schizophrenia diagnoses, becoming an advocate for them and empowering others in her position. She credits Treatment Advocacy Center founder Dr. E. Fuller Torrey for saving her life and helping her not blame herself for her sons’ mental illness. At 83, she is retired but wholeheartedly embraced by her community of caregivers and advocates. Read more about June Judge's life and advocacy work here.
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Access to Mental Health care is About to Get Harder
The novel coronavirus has made many changes to the way people receive treatment for their mental illness, while also limiting how many people can receive care. Our national mental health system already offered an inadequate amount of services, but in the wake of the pandemic, even more services have been cut. "It's pretty clear that we are at a moment in time where we are worried about losing a significant number of mental health providers and group homes," Treatment Advocacy Center Executive Director John Snook told Business Insider. Read the article here.
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Pre-Arrest Diversion Sites During COVID-19 |
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The Treatment Advocacy Center is a national founding partner of the Police, Treatment, Community Collective (PTACC). As part of PTACC's ongoing response to the COVID-19 crisis, on May 27 PTACC released its ten-step plans for pre-arrest diversion sites during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.The ten-step plan works toward alternatives to incarceration of those with severe mental illness while also protecting deflection teams.
In April, the Treatment Advocacy Center detailed our priorities during COVID-19 in a letter to senior decision-makers, encouraging them to focus on the needs of those with severe mental illness. Point six of our letter reflects PTACC's ten-step plan, prioritizing those with the most severe mental illness in pre-arrest diversion efforts.
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On Screen: PBS Doc Explores a Humane Criminal Justice Approach
to Mental Illness
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The Definition of Insanity follows the Miami-Dade Criminal Mental Health Project (CMHP) and Judge Steven Leifman as they create a humane approach to help people with mental illness who are in the criminal justice system, through the courts and back into the community. In case you missed it, it's available to watch here.
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RESEARCH WEEKLY: May Recap
DATAPOINT of the month
96% reduction in NIMH support of drug treatment trials for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
While the National Institute of Mental Health’s (NIMH) budget increased by 35% since 2015, its support of drug treatment trials for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder decreased by 96%, according to a new report by Treatment Advocacy Center Founder Dr. E. Fuller Torrey. Between 2006 and 2010, the NIMH funded 48 trials of new drugs to treat severe mental illness, but now is only funding two. “Given the fact that the last new psychiatric drug for psychosis was clozapine, which was approved 30 years ago, the time is long past due when the NIMH should undertake an aggressive search for better drugs,” Torrey states.
Find all of this month's research highlights here.
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