Serious Mental Illness: Creating Alternatives to Incarceration, Homelessness and Death
Working to build a full continuum of coordinated psychiatric care for people in mental health crisis.
– Founded by Janet Hays
"Barriers To Treatment & Care" Survey - We want to hear from YOU!
Healing Minds NOLA Legal Services
2020 Zoom Cast Series: Focus on Severe Mental Illness
October 19th, 2019 Conference Archives: Implementing a Full Continuum of Psychiatric Treatment and Care
What We Do.
The goal is inform and educate policy makers on how to better the system so that it works for people and families most impacted by the lack of services and facilities for those who suffer with mental illness.
Streamlining Inpatient and Outpatient Treatment and Care
Housing: Meeting People Where They Are
America’s Mental Health system is broken. Too many people with serious
mental illnesses experience incarceration and homelessness as a result of a system that largely excludes them.
Consequently, the criminal justice system has been tasked with the
responsibility of housing patients.
Louisiana is just one of many states that lacks a streamlined system of inpatient and outpatient care for people with serious mental illnesses.
Lack of protocols and procedures in hospitals create communication gaps between treatment and mental health staff that often produce negative outcomes.
There are a myriad of issues that impact the lack of affordable housing options for people with serious mental illnesses who are homeless and/or involved in the criminal justice system. However, affordable housing is only part of the problem as it pertains to people with cognitive impairments caused by Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disease and Serious Clinical Depression.
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The goal is inform and educate policy makers on how to better the system so that it works for people and families most impacted by the lack of services and facilities for those who suffer with mental illness.
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More Information
AOT a therapeutic program designed to help prevent seriously mental ill people who have difficulty adhering to their prescribed treatment plans while living in the community. Louisiana’s involuntary outpatient commitment statute, Nicola’s Law is the enabling legislation that allows parishes to operate AOT programs. The Orleans team consists of a Judge, the Mental Health Agency for the District, full wrap around services and the participant who collaborate together to help the participant get on a better life path and avoid unnecessary hospitalization and incarceration.
To learn more: Assisted Outpatient Treatment [AOT] Implementation
Amongst the wonderful gifts from Santa last year was one not so wonderful – a HUGE lump of coal from Joshua A. Gordon, M.D., Ph.D. who is the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the lead federal agency for research on mental disorders.
The Treatment Advocacy Center writes: “By virtually halting new drug trials, the agency, which was created in 1946 to find better drugs for treating mental illnesses, has effectively abdicated its responsibilities to the roughly 2.8 million Americans suffering from the brutal disease.”
Help fight back! Sign the petition to urge NIMH to prioritize the study of treatments for schizophrenia.
Super exciting! NAMI, MHA, Bazelon, ACLU, Disability Rights and many other organizations that have supported Olmstead suits that kick mentally ill people out of hospitals and adult homes issued a letter stating that some mentally ill people cannot live independently and do need 24/7 support.
Hopefully now it will be more politically correct to get Government funding to build recovery homes instead of jails.
In reaction to investigations by others, NAMI National and NAMI Metro NYC sent a letter to a judge overseeing the discharges that states in part: “We also believe that there must be recognition that some individuals leaving adult care homes may require twenty-four hour, seven day a week care and support in supervised settings. These services need not be provided in large institutional facilities but can be provided in smaller settings, such as group homes and other residences. Since many of the former adult home residents have lived outside of the mainstream of society for many years, it is unrealistic to expect that all class members can live safely in unsupervised scattered-site apartments, even if that is their stated preference. The capacity of some individuals to make informed choices about housing may also be impaired in some cases due to severe mental health symptoms. Thus, while it is very important to honor the stated preferences of individual class members whenever possible, when the need for heightened levels of needed care make the choice of scattered site housing unsafe, alternative options should be considered, such as group homes or apartments with 24/7 supports.”
Mental Illness Policy Org writes: “I congratulate them for recognizing what people on this (facebook) page have been saying for years. I hope their advocacy for people with serious mental illness who need housing with 24 hour supports, goes beyond writing this single letter and becomes and important (and public!) part of their advocacy (HT Carolyn DeLaney Gorman).”
The Letter is here: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5682677-Frontline-ProPublica-Letter.html .
The article explaining the letter is here https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/mental-health-organization-supported-housing-reforms-new-york/
Advocacy in Action
Working to build a full continuum of coordinated psychiatric care for people in mental health crisis and bring residents, families and stakeholders together to explore alternatives to incarceration, homelessness and death for those who suffer from the myriad forms of mental illness.
About Us
Of the many challenges facing youth and adults living with mental illness in our region is a LACK OF ADEQUATE FACILITIES AND SERVICES, resulting in needless physical and emotional suffering and often INCARCERATION, HOMELESSNESS, AND DEATH. Federal and State policies meant to deinstitutionalize people with severe mental illness has resulted in trans-institutionalizing people in jails and prisons. Jails across the country are now our number one inpatient psychiatric institutions. The failure to address systemic challenges associated with severe mental illness has culminated in unsustainable humanitarian and economic costs. We cannot continue to ignore people with serious mental illness, the most vulnerable amongst us. We need the system to work.
Healing Minds NOLA is currently working on 3 initiatives and invites New Orleans residents to share their stories and experiences about navigating the mental healthcare system pre and post Hurricane Katrina in an effort to explore what works and what doesn’t to better inform policy.