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Preventing Forensic Involvement Through Continuous Care
When our behavioral health, housing, and social service systems are unable to adequately meet the needs of people with serious mental health challenges, those individuals too often find their way into the criminal justice system without the treatment and support they need. The path to...
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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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Community Integration, Economic Security, and the Promise of Olmstead
True economic security for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities is shaped by whether individuals have meaningful opportunities to work, earn income, build relationships, make choices, and participate fully in their communities. Financial planning and economic security 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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Still Arresting Our Way Out: Why New York Needs to Expand Its Diversion Courts
For decades, New Yorkers dealing with mental health and substance use issues have been funneled into our jails and prisons and denied the treatment they need to get better. Far too often, local correctional facilities end up serving as the default mental health provider. New York is not alone in...
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Governor Hochul Announces $21 Million to Expand Emergency Programs for Individuals Experiencing a Mental Health Crisis
Comprehensive psychiatric emergency programs provide 24/7 emergency services, extended observation, and crisis outreach. Funding to establish new programs at hospitals in New York City, the Hudson Valley, and northern New York regions; help improve four others. On August 10, 2026, Governor...
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New York State Announces $660,000 Awarded to Strengthen Suicide Prevention Efforts in Five Rural Counties
Funding Will Support the Establishment of Sustainable Prevention Activities in Schools, Clinical Settings, and in the Community Office of Mental Health's Suicide Prevention Center of New York to Assist in Implementing Local Initiatives Statewide The New York State Office of Mental Health...
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Strengthening New York’s I/DD System Through Collaboration, Innovation, and Alignment
At a moment when New York's intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) system faces significant challenges, one network chose not to wait for change but to lead it. On March 31, 2026, the New York Integrated Network (NYIN) convened its 13 provider agencies, advocacy partners, and...
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Advocacy: The Power of the Collective Voice
Policy-making can solve systemic problems, but we can only achieve true behavioral healthcare reform with adequate financial resources. Advocating for public support for mental healthcare takes time, persistence, and a group effort. One of the most successful examples of collaboration in New...
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How Policy and Advocacy Shape Behavioral Health Care Systems in New York State
Over the last several years, New York Governor Kathy Hochul has invested over $2 billion in strengthening all aspects of the state's mental health system. Transforming one of the largest public mental health systems in the country requires strategic vision. This process has been informed by...
