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.
Treatment Advocacy Center in the News
Mental Illness is Not a Crime
Acting Executive Director Lisa Dailey was quoted in an article about the need to send trained mental health clinicians to respond to mental health crisis calls, not police. Treatment Advocacy Center's research on fatal law enforcement encounters with people with severe mental illness was also cited. Read morehere.
Improving Access to Care in Maryland
Treatment Advocacy Center's "Grading the States” report was highlighted in a story about ongoing debates in Maryland about how the state can improve access to treatment for people with severe mental illness. Read more here. The article was originally published in The Baltimore Sun righthere.
Texas' Bed Shortage
Treatment Advocacy Center's 2020 report that highlighted Texas' failure to adequately define danger to self and others in its commitment laws was cited in an article about a mother's struggle to get her son committed, and how a measure that did not pass earlier in Texas, HB 4274, would have helped her. Read more here.
77.6% of Californians are Now Covered by Laura's Law
California counties have been busy voting to opt in or out of Laura's Law, California's version of assisted outpatient treatment (AOT), these past few weeks. As of writing this 77.6% of Californians are now covered by Laura's Law. Sacramento County started the trend by opting in earlier this month. Eric Smith helped this push by testifying in favor of Laura's Law in front of the Alcohol and Drug Advisory Board in Sacramento County. After Eric's personal and powerful testimony the board unanimously agreed to send a letter to the Board of Supervisors urging them to opt in. The Board of Supervisors later voted to opt in. You can read more about it here. Watch Eric's testimony, starting at 52:52 right here.
Monterey County, unfortunately, voted to abandon the many people living with a severe mental illness in Monterey County and did not opt in to Laura's Law. Treatment Advocacy Center provided a comment in an article about the decision. Read more here.
Just this week, both Santa Clara and Riverside counties voted to opt in. Read about Santa Clara here. Treatment Advocacy Center was referenced in the article sharing the good news of Riverside County opting in. Read that here.
RESEARCH WEEKLY: May 2021 Recap
Active Minds Partnership
In honor of May being Mental Health Awareness Month, the research team featured guest Research Weekly blogs written by members of Active Minds, a non-profit organization focused on young adult mental health with more than 550 chapters at high schools and colleges/universities throughout the United States.
The guest authors covered serious mental illness in sexual and gender minorities and severe mental illness in college students. You can read the them both here and here.
Find all of this month's research highlights here.
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