Model and Strategy
Our mental health care system is broken; the consequences are unimaginable.
At least 30% of the chronically homeless has an SMI. More than 2 million people with SMI are booked in jail every year. When not in jail, those in need to are forced to cycle in and out of crisis, clogging emergency rooms or abandoned to the streets without ever receiving effective care.
Our project will expand our successful aBedInstead campaign to educate the community, law enforcement, consumers and policymakers on how our mental health system incentivizes the incarceration of people with SMI and what they can do to help solve this crisis.
An educational campaign alone can't solve this crisis, but education is the first step to creating change. Polling shows the public is ready for solutions to these issues, but is largely unaware of what to do.
The aBedInstead campaign will provide answers to those questions by educating key constituencies on why our system is so broken and how they can make real solutions a reality. We will couple examples of the discriminatory effects of our mental health system with commonsense, proven solutions that people can rally behind. Together, we will effectuate change.
Impact
Over the past 60 years, the mental health system has crumbled around us, leaving people with severe mental illness (SMI) to
cycle through the public service systems that cannot refuse them, such as emergency rooms and jails.
As our mental health systems failures have reached crisis, policymakers and the public are finally demanding solutions. Our aBedInstead campaign will answer that call.
We will educate affected constituencies about why our system is so broken and how they can make real solutions a reality. We will couple examples showing the negative and discriminatory effect our mental health care system is having on people with SMI and their families with commonsense, proven solutions that people can rally behind.
Our initial aBedInstead campaign showed us that, for the first time in decades, real systematic reforms are possible. At this unique moment in our nation’s history, an expanded aBedInstead campaign has the potential to reshape our nation’s mental health system and make the criminalization of mental illness unacceptable in ways that have never before been possible.
Leadership
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John Snook
Executive Director
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Renee Smith
Project Lead