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Beyond Deinstitutionalization: Unraveling the Complex Criminalization of Serious Mental Illness in America
Individuals with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) are disproportionately represented among the populations of the nation's correctional facilities. Some have dubbed jails and prisons the "New Asylums" as the criminal justice system has become the de facto service provider for individuals with severe...
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Diversion Is Prevention: How New York Is Supporting Mental Health Around the Legal System
We all deal with mental health challenges in our lives. In New York State, we are doing everything in our power to guarantee that nobody has to face these challenges alone by expanding community-based services, supporting individuals during all stages of life, and promoting sustained recovery. For...
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Beyond Either/Or: Where Assisted Outpatient Treatment Fits in Mental Health Care
Debates over Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) too often ask us to choose a side. Either we respect autonomy and rely exclusively on voluntary treatment, or we accept coercion as necessary to ensure people receive care. Neither position adequately reflects the complexity of serious mental illness...
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Building the Missing Middle: How Advocacy Helped Create a New Behavioral Health Intervention for New Yorkers With Serious Mental Illness
For decades, our behavioral health systems have faced the growing challenge of meeting the needs of people with serious mental illness (SMI). In New York, where the Institute for Community Living (ICL) operates, and most places in the country, demand for services far exceeds supply. Furthermore,...
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Bridge to Home: Creating an Innovative Pathway From Psychiatric Inpatient Care to Permanent Housing and Longer-Term Wellbeing
For many New Yorkers living with serious mental illness, leaving the hospital does not mean they will find stability. Instead, discharge often marks the beginning of another unfortunate cycle — from psychiatric units to shelters, from shelters back to emergency rooms, and sometimes back to the...
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Centered in Lived Experiences: Peers Reshape Engagement in California’s CARE Court
Living with the symptoms of a serious mental illness can feel isolating and debilitating. It can also breed distrust, which makes it difficult to accept services and support. These challenges were top of mind when the CARE Act launched in Los Angeles in December 2023, establishing a civil court...
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The Invisible Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE): Parental Mental Illness
Children rely on their parents for so many things, such as learning how to tie your shoes, respect your elders, and navigate relationships with friends. Parents are often the first to celebrate their kids’ joys and support them with the challenges of life. Parents teach and role model through...
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I Wish My Brother Had Been Diagnosed With Schizophrenia Before He Turned 18
Do you ever walk past a person on the streets exhibiting mental health issues and wonder what happened to their family? I have a brother—or at least, I used to. I worry about where he is and hope he is safe. He hasn’t taken my call since 2014. When I was 13, I had a very bad day. I was...
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No One Forgotten: Sharing Love with Hospitalized Mental Health Patients
The psych ward can be an unbearably lonely place. We’re often alone with our thoughts and reflections on relapses, struggles, disappointments, and hopelessness. I know. I’ve been there. I’ve suffered from severe bipolar I disorder with psychosis for over 25 years. Mental health crises landed...
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Voice and Identity: Daughters and Sons of Parents with Psychiatric Experiences
Parenting with a mental health condition is common, yet widely unsupported. The following statistics may surprise you: according to Joanne Nicholson of Brandeis and Kate Beibel at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, 68% of women and 57% of men with diagnosed psychiatric disorders are...
