News and Commentary from the

Treatment Advocacy Center

June 2021

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

How Involuntary Treatment Helps

Our founder, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, was cited in an New York Times op-ed about the different ways to help people with SMI. Involuntary outpatient treatment was referenced as an exemplary way to stabilize people with psychosis. A 2003 study about how involuntary outpatient treatment can decrease hospital recidivism and increase patient quality of life was also mentioned in support of this position. Read more here.

California Expanding Access to Laura's Law

Treatment Advocacy Center was referenced in an article about the surge of California counties opting in to Laura's Law (assisted outpatient treatment). Read more here.

Maryland's Bed Shortage

Director of Research Elizabeth Sinclair Hancq was quoted in an article about the demand for psychiatric beds in Maryland. Read more here.

Acting Executive Director Lisa Dailey was quoted in an article about the need for an increase in psychiatric beds because jails and prisons negatively affect the health and safety of people with SMI. Read more here.

The Way Forward: A Podcast on AOT

This month, we launched a new limited series podcast, The Way Forward, on the extraordinary success of assisted outpatient treatment in Ohio.

The debut episode, Assisted Outpatient Treatment: A lifesaver?, explained what AOT is and how exactly it can help people with SMI. In the second episode, AOT Champions, you learned from an AOT advocate and how to start an AOT program in your home. AOT: Inside the Courtroom, the third episode, brought listeners into a courtroom in Ohio’s Lorain County to show how an AOT program really works. The last episode, which comes out next week, AOT Success Stories, highlights people who have graduated from AOT programs and regained their independence.

Guests include Butler County’s Judge Randy Rogers; chief of psychiatry at Northeast Ohio Medical University, Dr. Mark Munetz; executive director of NAMI Richland County, Mary Kay Pierce; Lorain County’s Judge James Walther and Columbus AOT team supervisor, Jeanne Levy.

Listen to the three episodes out now here or wherever you listen to podcasts. The last episode, AOT Success Stories, is out next Wednesday!

RESEARCH WEEKLY: June 2021 Recap

DATAPOINT of the month

536,000 people with serious mental illness identify as Lesbian or Gay

June represents Pride Month, a time to recognize the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer individuals have had on history. The first Pride parade occurred on June 28, 1970 in New York City in honor of the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, considered a major turning point against LGBTQ discrimination.

According to data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Survey on Drug Use and Health, there are more than 500,000 people with serious mental illness who identify as Lesbian or Gay. An additional two million identify as bisexual, according to the same data.

Research on LGBTQ+ and severe mental illness is scarce. A review published in Psychiatric Services in 2016 concludes “there is a pressing need for research into interventions for LGBT populations with severe mental illness as well as descriptive studies to inform efforts to reduce illness morbidity linked to discrimination.”

Kidd, S., et al. (2016). Severe mental illness among LGBT populations: A scoping review . Psychiatric Services.

Find all of this month's research highlights here.

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