I grew up in a happy, middle class home. My father was a communications professor and part-time pastor. My mother was a stay-at-home mom with a home medical transcription business. I also have a younger sister and we have always been very close.

The Treatment Advocacy Center supports the proposed modifications to 45 CFR § 164.502 and 45 CFR § 164.510-514 because they will improve patient care for people with severe mental illness (SMI). However, stronger language to encourage disclosure of information and foster dialogue between healthcare providers and family caregivers would lead to even better outcomes. 

The Treatment Advocacy Center appreciates the opportunity to provide public comments to the NIMH National Advisory Mental Health Council in advance of the February 2, 2021 meeting. The Treatment Advocacy Center is a national nonprofit dedicated exclusively to eliminating barriers to the timely and effective treatment of serious mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

My organization, the Treatment Advocacy Center, a leading national advocacy organization that seeks to eliminate the barriers to treatment for people with severe mental illness, urges you, in keeping with your administration’s belief in science as a guiding principle, to appoint an Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services for Mental Health and Substance Use who will ensure that the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) prioritizes the needs of people with severe mental illness consistent with Congress’s intent in creating the position as part of the 21^st Century Cures Act, passed with wide bipartisan support and signed into law by President Obama in December of 2016. 

Biomarkers are powerful clinical and public health tools. They can be diagnostic, inform treatment decisions, or help determine disease risks if prevention measures are needed. However, biomarkers for schizophrenia currently do not exist. 

Fourteen hundred days.That is how many days it has been since my son Kevin died.  I remember when I counted the number of days after his birth, then transitioned to months and then to years.  Now, when asked by others about his death, I give the socially appropriate answer of ‘nearly four years,’ but I still think ‘1,400 days.’ 

“Not in my back yard,” otherwise known as NIMBY, refers to the phenomenon of residents of a community opposing a new development or a change of occupancy of an existing site. A barrier to building community-based housing and services for people with serious mental illness is negative public attitude toward people with mental illness and otherresidents’ desire to not live near them. New research suggests public attitudes about willingness to live near someone with mental illness can improve through increased contacts, however, negative perceptions are still extremely widespread among the general population.

Winter has set in here on the east coast and all of us are spending more time indoors due to the pandemic. The one upshot? More time for reading. Here are some of the books about #SMI that members of the Treatment Advocacy Center team are reading right now. We hope you find them useful.

People with a severe mental illness should be prioritized for receipt of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a recent viewpoint published in JAMA Psychiatry.

ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA – The Treatment Advocacy Center, a leading nonprofit that advocates for the elimination of barriers to effective treatment for individuals with severe mental illness, announced today that Executive Director John Snook will be leaving as of January 11, 2021 to assume the position of Director of Government Relations and Strategic Initiatives at the National Association for Behavioral Healthcare. Current Director of Advocacy Lisa Dailey will assume the role of Acting Executive Director as of January 12, 2021.