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The National Mental Health Consumers’ Self-Help Clearinghouse is affiliated with the Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion.
TO CONTACT: THE CLEARINGHOUSE: SELFHELPCLEARINGHOUSE@GMAIL.COM … SUSAN ROGERS: SUSAN.ROGERS.ADVOCACY@GMAIL.COM … JOSEPH ROGERS: JROGERS08034@GMAIL.COM
THE KEY UPDATE IS COMPILED, WRITTEN, AND EDITED BY SUSAN ROGERS, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL MENTAL HEALTH CONSUMERS’ SELF-HELP CLEARINGHOUSE.
NOTE: THE "FROM PREVIOUS EDITIONS OF THE KEY UPDATE BUT STILL FRESH!" DEPARTMENT, WHICH IS DIRECTLY BELOW THE MONTHLY CRIMINAL LEGAL SYSTEM DIGEST, INCLUDES ITEMS THAT HAD BEEN POSTED "ABOVE THE FOLD" IN EARLIER EDITIONS BUT ARE STILL RELEVANT. THESE INCLUDE ONGOING RESEARCH STUDIES THAT ARE STILL SEEKING PARTICIPANTS, AS WELL AS UPCOMING WEBINARS AND CONFERENCES, AND OTHER ITEMS OF CONTINUED INTEREST. DON'T MISS IT!
DEADLINE ALERT: Please note that, in the WEBINARS, TRAININGS, CONFERENCES, AND OTHER EVENTS category, there are nine events happening on March 26, 27, and 28, respectively! And there are opportunities and upcoming deadlines throughout the Key Update, including in “…But Still Fresh!” Check them out!
NEWS
Biden-Harris Administration Announces $36.9 Million in Behavioral Health Funding Opportunities
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), recently announced $36.9 million in grant programs supporting behavioral health services across the U.S. “SAMHSA grant programs like these help communities implement comprehensive, evidence-based strategies that prevent and address substance misuse and promote mental health across the country,” said SAMHSA leader Miriam E. Delphin-Rittmon, PhD, HHS assistant secretary for mental health and substance use. For the press release, click here. (Courtesy of Jacek Haciak) (A notice of the Statewide Consumer Network Program grants was included in the March 2024 Key Update.)
“Can Music Heal Trauma? Exploring the Therapeutic Powers of Sound”
“An increasing number of music therapists are now treating people touched by traumas both big and small, highlighting humanity’s deepest connections with music in the process,” according to a report on Pocket Worthy. For the article, click here. (Courtesy of Michael Skinner)
Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law Receives $2 Million Gift from Yield Giving Open Call
On March 19, 2024, “MacKenzie Scott’s Yield Giving announced Judge David L. Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law as one of the Yield Giving Open Call’s awardees working with people and in places experiencing the greatest need in the United States. The Bazelon Center received $2 million. This is the largest unrestricted single contribution in the organization’s history.” For the press release, click here.
Oxevision, a Controversial Inpatient Surveillance System, Won FDA Approval in 2021
Oxevision is “a patient monitoring system consisting of an infrared sensor and camera, which can be used to take vital signs and observe patients remotely. Currently, increasing numbers of psychiatric hospitals in England use Oxevision, in all patient bedrooms, thus enforcing blanket, 24-hour surveillance without ongoing informed consent and individualized risk assessments,” the Stop Oxevision campaign writes. “The use of these devices is an excessive use of force and an unnecessary invasion of privacy.” Among the groups that have organized to stop the use of Oxevision in the UK is the National Survivor User Network. While there is a petition to “Stop the rollout of Oxevision and invasive video surveillance in psychiatric hospitals” in the UK (click here), there does not seem to be a similar effort in the U.S.–yet.
OPPORTUNITIES
Does Your State Need Help to Comply with the HCBS Final Rule Requirements? NCAPPS Offers Support.
“NCAPPS is providing free short-term direct technical assistance to states who need support implementing person-centered planning in compliance with the HCBS Final Rule requirements…Preference will be given to states with strong leadership buy-in and established relationships with advocacy organizations.” For details, click here. Questions? ncapps@hsri.org
Learn how to engage in more meaningful activities! Join the TU Collaborative’s Research Study.
The Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion writes: “We are looking for individuals who are willing to participate in a six-month intervention to get out of the house and engage in more meaningful activities; who are available to meet on the day the intervention takes place; who are experiencing significant mental health issues; who live in the U.S.; and who are at least 18 years old. If you are interested in participating, please contact switch@temple.edu. You may be eligible for compensation of up to $440 for your time and effort.”
Mental Health America Seeks Nominations for Its Annual Awards
“We are excited to announce that nominations are now open for seven Mental Health America awards that recognize peers, individuals, journalists, advocates, and MHA affiliates making a difference in mental health,” MHA writes. “These awards will be given out during formal ceremonies at the 2024 Mental Health America Conference, held September 17-21, 2024, in Washington, D.C.” For details and to submit a nomination by the May 10th deadline, click here.
The Latest Wildflower Alliance Newsletter Includes News, Trainings, Opportunities, and Resources!
The latest edition of the Wildflower Alliance newsletter includes legislative alerts on a peer respite bill and an involuntary outpatient commitment bill, and a training on legislative advocacy to support the peer respite bill (April 16, 1 p.m.-3 p.m. ET OR April 17, 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. ET). It also includes an invitation to people who are willing to testify on video (with $100 in compensation). And that’s only a fraction of what the newsletter includes: There are more trainings and other opportunities too (some of which are described below)! For the newsletter, click here.
Have You Been Psychiatrically Hospitalized Within the Last Two Years in the U.S.? CAHPS Researchers Want to Hear From You
Researchers are recruiting for a project funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) “to develop questions about people’s inpatient mental health care experiences for a nationally distributed Consumer Assessment of Patient Healthcare Providers & Systems (CAHPS) survey. The individual interviews [in Spring 2024 via Zoom] will help us figure out what topics are important to ask about, and if the questions make sense to people who have had experiences in an inpatient mental health facility.” “Only the researchers will listen to the recordings, which will be destroyed within two months of the end of the study. Reports based on the interviews will not identify any of the participants.” To be eligible, participants must have been at least 18 years old when they were hospitalized. Respondents will receive $100. The principal investigators are from the Center for Survey Research at UMass Boston and Yale University School of Public Health. Questions? Carol.Cosenza@umb.edu. (Courtesy of Nev Jones)
RESOURCES
CAFÉ TAC Offers Consumer Pathways to Inclusion and Engagement Model (CPIEM)
“The Consumer Pathways to Inclusion and Engagement Model (CPIEM) is a [138-page] guidebook created by peers, for peers, to help them develop the skills they need to turn their lived mental health experience into meaningful change in the mental health system of care.” For more about the guidebook, including a link to download it (or you can click on the link attached to the title, above), click here. A webinar to introduce the guidebook was presented on March 14, 2024. For a recording of the webinar, click here. (Jeremy Countryman writes: “Recordings of all of our webinars are at https://cafetacenter.net/tac-trainings/. Just scroll down to “Recent Trainings and Webinars.”)
A Mental Health Recovery Workbook Has Garnered Many Endorsements from the Field
Your Mental Health Recovery Workbook: A Workbook to Share Hope, by Katherine Ponte, BA, JD, MBA, CPRP, has been highly praised by an array of individuals with lived experience, family members and other allies and advocates, and mental health professionals. Katherine, who has lived experience, is “a mental health advocate, author, non-profit founder, entrepreneur, coach, consultant, and lawyer. She is a faculty member of the School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry's Program for Recovery and Community Health at Yale University, Certified Psychiatric Rehabilitation Practitioner, and New York Certified Peer Specialist-Provisional.” For more about Katherine and the workbook, including the many testimonials and how to order it, click here.
“Introducing Alternatives to Suicide: An Interview with Caroline Mazel-Carlton about a New Approach to Crisis”
In this interview, published in The Community Psychologist, Shira Collings (née Emily Cutler) asks Caroline Mazel-Carlton, director of learning opportunities at the Wildflower Alliance, about Alternatives to Suicide, which the Wildflower Alliance (formerly the Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community) developed. For the interview, click here. For more about Alternatives to Suicide, “a peer-to-peer support practice for voicing, sitting with, understanding, and moving through suicidal thoughts,” click here.
“Treatment Not Trauma: A Community Care Infrastructure for Crisis Response, Mental Health, and Shared Safety”
A recent STAT article—”Moving from crisis response to crisis prevention in U.S. mental health systems” (February 8, 2024)—describes “Treatment Not Trauma,” a plan that organizers in Chicago have devised, which “begins from the recognition that the most important part of addressing mental health crises is to prevent them from ever arising. It therefore calls for neither a psychiatric nor police model of mental health response—both of which are dominated by reaction rather than prevention—but instead for a public health model of community wellness.” For the 26-page white paper about this approach, published in July 2023, click here.
Ward 81: Voices Documents the Lives of Women in the Locked Ward at Oregon State Hospital
In 1976, photographer Mary Ellen Mark and writer Karen Folger Jacobs “set out to document the lives of the women in this locked ward at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem—the only one in the state…Ward 81: Voices, an expanded edition of the 1979 book, includes previously unpublished photographs, excerpts from interviews with patients and recorded conversations between Mark and Jacobs, as well as new essays examining the influence of their project. For an article about the book, click here. (Courtesy of Jacek Haciak)
A Digital Booklet Explains the UN’s “Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and the Improvement of Mental Health Care”
MindFreedom International writes: “Monirul, a MindFreedom member in Bangladesh, has launched a website called MindfulRights in order to promote human rights in various fields in Bangladesh, including mental health care, and to raise public awareness of related issues within the country. Although the site is still a work in progress, it already offers educational resources, such as a digital booklet that Monirul has composed to explain the United Nations' Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and the Improvement of Mental Health Care in simple terms...To access these resources, click on the links above.
WEBINARS, TRAININGS, CONFERENCES, AND OTHER EVENTS
“The Black Immigrant & Disability Experience: Breaking Down Misconceptions and Bridging the Gap”
On March 26, 2024, 1:30 p.m.-3 p.m. ET (10:30 a.m. - 12 p.m. PT), Disability Rights California “will discuss the experience of Black Immigrants with disabilities at the intersection of family, community, and culture and explore policies and programs that can help Black immigrants with disabilities overcome the barriers and challenges they face.” For details and to register, click here.
Doors to Wellbeing’s March Webinar is on the CPS Career Outcomes Study
On March 26, 2024, at 2 p.m. ET, “join Laysha Ostrow, PhD, as she discusses some of the results from the Certified Peer Specialist (CPS) Career Outcomes Study, a 3-year effort to document the career outcomes of CPS.” For details and to register, click here.
SAMHSA Will Hold a Meeting of ISMICC on March 27—and You Are Invited
On March 27, 2024, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. ET, SAMHSA will hold a meeting of ISMICC (Interdepartmental Serious Mental Illness Coordinating Committee) in person and virtually. To register for the virtual meeting, click here. For more information, click here.
The March 2024 Northeast and Caribbean MHTTC Newsletter Includes Many Items of Interest. And the MHTTC Training and Events Calendar Includes Even More.
The Northeast and Caribbean MHTTC (Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network) writes at the top of its newsletter: “Below you will find a list of featured events and products brought to you by our Center, the MHTTC Network, and beyond.” One such webinar is “Addressing Myths About Substance Use, Addiction, Treatment and Recovery,” on March 27, 2024 (11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. ET). For details and to register for this webinar, click here. For the newsletter, click here. For the MHTTC Training and Events Calendar, which includes numerous webinars from each of the MHTTC regions, click here.
NASMHPD to Host Two SAMHSA-sponsored Webinars Focused on Youth Mental Health
On March 27, 2024, at 11:30 a.m. ET, NASMHPD (National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors) will present “Building a framework for developing a comprehensive school-based mental health program,” which will “share a mental health framework for schools that has been proven to be effective and successful in helping students to manage their mental health challenges and achieve academic success.” For details and to register, click here. And on April 3, 2024, at 11:30 a.m. ET, NASMHPD will present “Youth in Crisis: Supporting Youth through School- and Clinic-based Mental Health Programs,” which “will offer helpful strategies for addressing trauma and grief, substance abuse, and other barriers that can negatively affect student learning, growth, and development through school- and clinic-based mental health programs.” For details and to register, click here. Questions? kelle.masten@nasmhpd.org or paige.thomas@nasmhpd.org.
CRDJ Presents a Panel on “The Politics of Psychiatric Reinstitutionalization”
On March 27, 2024, from 1 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. ET, the Center for Racial and Disability Justice (CRDJ) will host a free virtual panel on "The Politics of Psychiatric Reinstitutionalization." CRDJ writes: “This important and timely panel will discuss reinstitutionalization under the guise of recent policy efforts to force and coerce people with psychiatric disabilities and unhoused folks into ‘treatment’ and hospitalization. This panel will be moderated by CRDJ's executive director, Jordyn Jensen. Panelists include Luke Sikinyi (director of public policy, Alliance for Rights and Recovery), Andrea Wagner (managing member, LaVoy Wagner LLC), and Stefen Short (supervising attorney & director of the Prisoners' Rights Project, The Legal Aid Society). To register for this free panel, click here.
ISPS-US Presents “Diverse Psychotherapeutic Approaches for Voice Hearing”
“This series features…expert-led [three-hour] sessions, each delving into a distinct therapeutic modality, including Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT) (March 27, 12 p.m. ET), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for psychosis (CBTp) (April 9, 2 p.m. ET), Psychodynamic Therapy (April 23, 2 p.m. ET), Creative Arts Therapy (May 14, 11 a.m. ET), [and] Internal Family Systems (IFS) (May 28, 5 p.m. ET).” ISPS-US writes: “These workshops are interactive learning experiences and, therefore, should be attended live. There are only 40 spaces available." Because the first session, on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), occurred on March 5, you must register for individual sessions rather than for the whole series. For details, including cost, and to register, click here.
CAFÉ TAC Invites You to Join a Rapid-Fire Recovery Q&A with Peer Leader Cherene Caraco!
On March 28, 2024, at 3 p.m. ET, Cherene Caraco–CEO of North Carolina’s Promise Resource Network and 2022 Bazelon Center Innovator of the Year–will facilitate a conversation “about innovative peer-centered, recovery-focused practices in mental health, touching on topics from warm lines and peer respites to human rights and systems-level change...Use this link to submit your question or comment, and we’ll bring it up during the webinar! We’ll also take additional questions and comments live! Register here!”
Moblize Recovery Will Host Two Virtual Workshops Focused on the “Interconnected Recovery Community”
On March 28, 2024, at 7 p.m. ET, Mobilize Recovery will present “Spirituality in Recovery: A walk into the present moment”…This workshop explores wellness of the mind, body, and spirit for individuals and families looking to deepen their personal scope of Spirituality in recovery…” To register, click here. And on April 25, 2024, at 7 p.m. ET, Mobilize Recovery will present “Rethink Recovery: Creating inclusive communities with intention,” which “will challenge how we define and talk about recovery. Accepting that there are multiple pathways is not enough; we must believe that all pathways are equally valid.” To register, click here. (Courtesy of Kevin Fitts)
The Next Judi’s Room Will Feature Noted Journalist and Author Rob Wipond
On April 3, 2024, at 6 p.m. ET (3 p.m. PT), journalist Rob Wipond, author of Your Consent is Not Required: The Rise in Psychiatric Detentions, Forced Treatment and Abusive Guardianships, will host a conversation about involuntary commitment. To ask Rob questions about his research and request specific topics for him to discuss, you can fill out this brief questionnaire before April 1. Rob will use these responses to guide his presentation, which will be followed by a question-and-answer and discussion period. For the Zoom link, click here.
SHARE! Supervision of Peer Workforce Conference Extends the Deadline to Submit a Proposal
The new deadline is April 5, 2024, to submit a proposal for the third virtual SHARE! Supervision of Peer Workforce Conference, “Bridging Research and Practice.” The virtual conference will be held Wednesday, April 17, 2024, 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. ET (8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT). To submit a proposal & to register, click here.
Now I See a Person Institute to Present a Virtual Conference on “Normalizing Ourselves for the Clients”
On April 7, 2024, at 2 p.m. ET (11 a.m. PT), the Now I See a Person Institute will present a two-hour virtual conference on “Normalizing Ourselves for the Clients. Freeing Ourselves and Finding Freedom.” During the conference, a panel of clinicians will discuss “how therapeutic relationships and conversations foster a cure from mental illness narratives.” To register for the free conference–donations are gratefully accepted–please contact admin@nowiseeaperson.com. For more information, click here.
VA Presents National Mental Health Recovery and Wellness Webinar Series
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has posted a list of its upcoming one-hour webinars: “Treating the Whole Person: Special Considerations for Addressing Behavioral Health Comorbidities in Serious Mental Illness” (April 9), “Collaborative Decision-making for Veterans with SMI” (May 14), and “VISION Coalition (Veteran-Informed Safety Intervention & Outreach Network)” (June 11). All webinars begin at 1 p.m. ET. The list also includes archived webinars. For details, click here. (Courtesy of Michelle Colder Carras)
Wildflower Alliance Presents Alternatives to Suicide Group Facilitator (Online) Training
This six-session online training (April 10, 12, 17, 19, 24, and 26, 12 p.m. - 4 p.m. ET) is accepting applications on a rolling basis until the training is full. For details, including cost (although “no one will be turned away for lack of funds”) and a link to apply, click here.
National Center for Victims of Crime Offers Grant Opportunity
On April 15, 2024, at 1 p.m. ET, the National Center for Victims of Crime will present a pre-application webinar for its Peer-to-Peer Program (P2P) grant opportunity, whose purpose “is to establish or enhance peer-to-peer support programs designed for victims and survivors of all crime types and underserved or marginalized communities who have experienced victimization. Through the P2P grant opportunity, the National Center for Victims of Crime will fund 10 subrecipients. To register for the webinar, click here. View the full request for proposals here. May 31 at 11:59 p.m. ET is the deadline to apply for funding here. Questions? Ask Program Manager Ashtyn Buechler (abuechler@victimsofcrime.org). (Courtesy of N.A.P.S. News Brief)
Copeland Center Hosts Interactive Six-Hour CE Course “for Peer Workers and Beyond”
On April 16 and April 18, 2024, from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET on both days, the Copeland Center will present “Talking with Intention: Effective Communication and Purposeful Self-Disclosure.” The Copeland Center writes: “This online course is designed for peer specialists and peer workers to examine effective communication strategies.” For details, including cost, and to register, click here. (Courtesy of N.A.P.S. News Brief)
Wildflower Alliance Presents “Creating Family-Based Crisis Alternatives to Emergency Rooms and Psych Hospitals
On April 27, 2024, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. ET, “Join Cindy Hadge and Sera Davidow for this training on families learning to navigate crisis without ending up in Emergency Rooms, hospitals, and other invasive interventions that can too often be traumatic and lead to further breakdowns in trust and connection.” For details and to register, click here.
Copeland Center to Host Taking Action for Wellbeing Conference in Philadelphia
From August 11 to 13, 2024, at the Philadelphia Marriott Old City, the Copeland Center will host “Taking Action for Wellbeing,” a national conference. “Hear about the most cutting edge research from top researchers in the field, learn supervision, team building, and leadership skills, and connect with hundreds of people who are also taking action for their wellbeing in a supportive environment driven by our values and ethics,” the Copeland Center writes, adding that Call for Workshop proposals will follow. For details and to register, click here.
ISEPP Issues Call for Proposals for Its 2024 Conference, to Be Held October 26-27
May 1, 2024, is the deadline to submit a proposal for the 26th annual conference of the International Society for Ethical Psychology & Psychiatry (ISEPP), to be held in Virginia Beach, Virginia, October 26-27. For questions, contact pepe.santana.phd@gmail.com
“Working with Hearing Voices and Unusual Beliefs”
The Wildflower Alliance writes: “Participants in this 6-session training will learn how to better understand and support people to make meaning of their experiences with voice hearing and/or unusual beliefs or what gets called ‘paranoia.’ Attendance at all sessions is required to fully complete the training. All sessions will be held online, and all times listed are in Eastern USA time. Registration is required. Space is limited.” The dates and times are July 17, 2024 (10 a.m.-2 p.m.), July 18 (10 a.m.-2 p.m.), July 19 (10 a.m.-11:30 a.m.), July 24 (9 a.m.-4 p.m.), July 25 (9 a.m.-4 p.m.), and July 26 (10 a.m.-2 p.m.). For details and to register and pay, click here.
Mad Camp Is Scheduled for July 18-22, 2024
“The second annual Mad Camp is scheduled for July 18-22 this year at Four Springs near Middletown, California. Applications are now being accepted, and some scholarships are available. Mad Camp is a week-long summer camp for mad people in the mountains: a place for singing, dancing, cavorting, telling stories, reading poetry, naps, meditation, community, hiking, playing games, yoga, swimming, art and craft creating, eating delicious food, making friends, listening to music, hanging out, open mic... and much more! The deadline to apply for tickets is April 8th. To learn more about Mad Camp, click on madcamp.net."
The April 2024 Digest of Articles Offering Healthy Lifestyle Advice
For “Health misinformation is rampant on social media – here’s what it does, why it spreads and what people can do about it,” click here. For “Study Puts a Cork in Belief That a Little Wine Helps the Heart: If you think a glass of wine in the evening is good for your heart, think again,” click here. For “Do You Still Need to Wash Pre-Washed Produce?” click here. For “The benefits of reading aloud,” click here. For “15 Fitness Fads That Do More Harm Than Good,” click here. For “Lying on the Floor Can Help You Feel More Grounded, According to Trauma Specialists—Here’s What Happened When I Tried It for a Week,” click here. For “You can fight existing signs of dementia with a healthy lifestyle, a new study suggests,” click here. For “How memory and thinking ability change with age,” click here. For “The Four Keys to Well-Being: Dr. Richard Davidson explains that well-being is a skill that can be practiced and strengthened,” click here. For “What are the health benefits of dark chocolate? Dark chocolate is rich in minerals, such as iron, magnesium, and zinc. it can have various health benefits, including reducing inflammation and decreasing the risk of heart disease,” click here. For “Presidential Physical Fitness Test: Can You Pass It Now?” click here. For “Antidepressants Could Trigger Some Cases of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome,” click here. For “Acting Out Dreams Predicts Parkinson’s and Other Brain Diseases: Enacted dreams could be an early sign of Parkinson’s disease,” click here. For “Hitting the activity mark: Guidelines recommend 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity, but how can you consistently reach this number?” click here. For “Exercise even better than anti-depressants at treating depression, study finds: Walking, jogging, yoga and strength training appeared to be the most effective types of exercise, according to a major new analysis,” click here. For “How to Heal from Trauma,” click here. (The previous two items were Courtesy of the Surviving Spirit Newsletter) For “How to stop living on auto-pilot: Are you going through the motions? Use these therapy techniques to set meaningful goals and build a ‘life worth living,’” click here. For “States have hodgepodge of cumbersome rules for enforcing sunshine laws,” click here.
The April 2024 Digest of Articles about the Criminal Legal System, in which Many Individuals with Mental Health Conditions Are Incarcerated (and the Key Update continues after this Digest)
For “The ‘Bad Guys’: Police academies socialize officers into an ‘us-versus-them’ mentality–particularly when it comes to activists–and harden them to any attempts at reform. They are taught that activists will purposely target police with lies, belligerence, and baiting. Thus police are primed to treat activists with distrust and disdain before they’ve even spent a single day on the job,” click here. For “When Police Encounters With Autistic People Turn Fatal: The death of a 15-year-old is once again raising questions about training on neurodivergent and mental health diagnoses among law enforcement agencies,” click here. For “Bedbugs, Rats and No Heat: How One Woman Endured a Decade of Neglect in New York’s Guardianship System: Judith Zbiegniewicz lived in squalor, yet every month, her legally appointed guardian was paid $450 from her bank account. She is one of the thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers left stranded by a system meant to protect them,” click here. For “Lawmakers Ignored Warnings About New York’s Broken Guardianship System for Decades. Here’s How They Can Fix It,” click here. For “Her Story: Issue 16 highlights women’s experiences in the U.S. criminal justice system,” click here. For “The effects of cash bail on crime and court appearances: Research suggests that curtailing the use of monetary release conditions among low-risk defendants would not result in dramatic drops in court attendance or increased risk of reoffending,” click here. For “Forty-six States Paid for Violent, Racist Police Training. We should ban pretextual stops instead: A recent report by the New Jersey Comptroller’s office found that a company called Street Cop trained police to shoot indiscriminately at people, medically experiment on the injured, and treat virtually anyone who isn’t a white, straight, cisgender male with open disdain. More training like this won’t make America safer,” click here. For “The National Registry of Exonerations says 153 innocent people were freed last year. A new report credits an increase on innocence organizations and conviction integrity units working on cases,” click here. For “Harassment and violence have become routine at Tewksbury’s overburdened psych hospital, workers say,” click here. For “Federal prison employees falsified logs in case where inmate committed suicide, IG says: The Justice Department inspector general last week urged the Bureau of Prisons to adopt stricter rules governing special housing unit rounds logs after lax policies potentially impaired the ability to prosecute the employees,” click here. For “Supreme Court says Georgia can’t retry mentally ill man who killed his mother: The high court said that despite an unusual split verdict, Georgia could not bring another trial against Damian McElrath because doing so would violate the double jeopardy clause,” click here. For “Supreme Court Blocks Retrial of Georgia Man Accused of Murder,” click here. For “Read the Ruling [in the above-noted case],” click here. For “Turns Out It’s Really Useful to Have a Former Public Defender on the Supreme Court,” click here. For “U.S. Police Dogs Originated from Slavery–and Must Be Abolished: The Thirteenth Amendment bans all ‘badges and incidents’ of slavery. But the use of police dogs enacts cruelty on both people of color and the dogs themselves. To fully rid society of slavery, the dogs must be retired,” click here. For “Unmaking Prison Walls: Reacquainting ourselves with practices that made prisons more permeable can be a step toward ending mass incarceration,” click here. For “Rat fur, arsenic and copper: the dangerous ingredients lacing US prison water,” click here. For “Prison deaths report finds widespread missteps, failures in latest sign of crisis in federal prisons,” click here. For “The State of Prison Reform: A Conversation with Nazgol Ghandnoosh,” click here. For “This Mississippi Court Appoints Lawyers for Just 1 in 5 Defendants Before Indictment: Mississippi is known as one of the worst states for public defense. In one lower court, most defendants went without any lawyer before indictment,” click here. For “This court program helps at-risk youth with autism avoid juvenile detention,” click here. For “Advancing Transgender Justice: Illuminating Trans Lives Behind and Beyond Bars,” click here. For “Travis County to launch $23 million project to keep mentally ill from jail: Next month, mentally ill individuals accused of committing minor crimes will be “diverted” to a new 25-bed facility instead of jail cells in Travis County,” click here. For “Gaskin: The prison system needs a theory of change: ‘How can we effectively and justly improve recidivism rates to warrant the financial investment and ensure returning citizens flourish and contribute?’” click here. For “Revealed: at least 22 Californians have died while being held face down by police since 2016,” click here. For “‘He Died Like an Animal’: Some Police Departments Hogtie People Despite Knowing The Risks: The U.S. Department of Justice in 1995 warned that people may die when police tie handcuffed wrists to bound ankles,” click here. For “Cheap Jail and Prison Food Is Making People Sick. It Doesn’t Have To. Penny-pinching on food services fleeces incarcerated people and their families and has adverse health impacts, all while lining the pockets of corporations. Better ways exist,” click here. For “How Federal Prisons Are Getting Worse: Government watchdog agencies found hundreds of preventable deaths and excessive use of solitary confinement,” click here. For “Editorial: New lawsuit points to obvious truth: Solitary confinement is cruel and must end,” click here. For “ICE's wanton use of solitary confinement defies even its own standards: ‘We cannot sit idly by and allow tens of thousands more to suffer and develop debilitating mental and physical conditions as a result of this inhuman practice,’” click here. For “American Psychological Association Resolution Calls for Ban on Youth Solitary…and Other News on Solitary Confinement,” click here. For “‘Is a Life in Solitary “Cruel and Unusual?’ In Pennsylvania, the heart of solitary confinement reform, an intellectually disabled inmate says he’s been held in wretched isolation for 36 years (2016),” click here. For “Understanding the Trajectories of Women who use Violence Through an Intersectional Feminist Analysis,” click here. For “The FBI Catches Suspects by Utilizing Phone 'Push Alerts': The investigative technique has raised alarms from privacy advocates, who worry the data could be used to surveil Americans at a time when police and prosecutors have used cellphone data to investigate women for potentially violating state abortion bans,” click here. For “Graying in Prison: There's no aging with dignity for people serving extreme sentences. Freeing them is only a start to a deeper paradigm shift,” click here. For “Prisoners with developmental disabilities face unique challenges. One facility is offering solutions,” click here. For “Dozens of Minnesotans have been killed in high speed police chases since 2017,” click here. For “Motor vehicle crash deaths related to police pursuits in the United States,” click here. For “Department of Corrections: The Thirteenth Amendment says, ‘Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted (emphasis added), shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.’...Until this ‘Exception Clause’ is removed from the Constitution and it reads, ‘Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction,’ then call us what we are. Call us slaves,” click here. For “Women in Recovery, Oklahoma: “This profile discusses Women in Recovery’s approach to integrating employment services into its treatment and recovery programs,” click here. For “‘This is torture': State of health care in U.S. prisons leads to brutal inmate deaths,” click here. For “Federal courts move against ‘judge-shopping’: The new policy is aimed at combating litigants’ attempts to direct their cases to specific judges,” click here. For “A Welcome Judicial Reform: Towards Random Case Assignment,” click here.
FROM PREVIOUS ISSUES OF THE KEY UPDATE BUT STILL FRESH!
WEBINARS, CONFERENCES, AND OTHER TRAININGS
NARPA (National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy) Issues Request for Proposals for Its 2024 Conference!
The deadline is April 1, 2024, to submit a workshop proposal for NARPA’s 2024 conference, to be held in Portland, Oregon, September 4-7. For details and to apply, click here. For details of the presentations at last year’s conference, as well as other information, click here.
Sixth (Online) World Mental Health Congress to Be Held April 15-16, 2024
“Breaking Barriers, Building Resilience: Nurturing Mental Health in a Changing World” is the theme of the Sixth World Mental Health Congress, a virtual event to be held April 15-16, 2024. For more information and to register, click here.
Suicide Research Symposium to Be Held April 17-19, 2024
The third annual free, virtual Suicide Research Symposium, cohosted with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, will be held April 17-19, 2024. For more information, click here. (Courtesy of Beckie Child)
National Federation of Families Conference Seeks Workshop Proposals
The National Federation of Families is looking for “60-minute proposals and a very limited number of 3-hour intensive workshop proposals” for its 35th annual conference, to be held November 7-9, 2024, at the Hyatt Regency in Orlando, Florida. “The National Federation welcomes proposals from professionals, family members, and youth who support the well-being of our children—of all ages—and promote family voice.” For details and to submit a proposal—deadline: May 1—click here.
National Children’s Mental Health Acceptance Week Will Be May 5-11, 2024
National Children’s Mental Health Acceptance Week, sponsored by the National Federation of Families, will be held May 5-11, 2024. Previously called National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Week, it was established in 1992 and updated in 2022 from Awareness to Acceptance. For more information, click here.
Are You a Peer Who Is Interested in Entrepreneurship? Attend This National Workshop Series in June and July!
On six consecutive Tuesdays from June 4 through July 9 (12 p.m.-2 p.m. ET), PENTAC (Peer Experience National TA Center) will host a free live, virtual workshop series that is “designed to assist individuals in the United States living with mental health and substance use issues in their consideration and pursuit of entrepreneurship as a route to occupational and financial wellness.” Participants must be able to commit to full attendance for all six sessions, with cameras on. For details and to register, click here.
Psychosis Is the Topic for the 2024 Online Law & Mental Health Conference
The 2024 online Law & Mental Health Conference on psychosis will be June 10, 11, and 12, 2024. Topics will include: “What is psychosis exactly – from a medical or clinical perspective, from a legal or criminal perspective, and from the perspective of those who have experienced psychosis? What are our best practices with psychosis for treatment, for housing, for families and friends, for courts, jails, and hospitals? How can those who have psychosis practice self-care and find mutual aid?” Among the speakers will be investigative journalist Rob Wipond, author of Your Consent Is Not Required: The Rise in Psychiatric Detentions, Forced Treatment, and Abusive Guardianships. For more information and to register, click here.
Trauma Summit 2024 to be held in Belfast and Virtually!
On June 17-18, 2024, the Action Trauma Network–a not-for-profit organization that promotes awareness of psychological trauma and trauma recovery throughout the world–will present its Trauma Summit 2024, in Belfast and online! For more information and to register, click here!
Academy of Peer Services Offers “Honest, Open Proud”
The Academy of Peer Services has opened enrollment for its new, self-paced, five-part Continuing Education Series, “Honest, Open Proud (HOP).” “HOP was developed by Dr. Patrick Corrigan, director of the National Consortium of Stigma and Empowerment (NCSE), through extensive community-based participatory research led by people with lived experience.” For the announcement, which includes a link to the flyer and to directions for registering, click here.
“Is Psychiatry Working?” The BBC Offers a Series of Eight Episodes Organized Under This Topic
Besides “Is Psychiatric Working?” the topics covered on these half-hour podcasts are, broadly stated, Anxiety, Healing and Recovery, Therapy, Medication, Diagnosis, Detention, and Crisis. To listen to the free podcasts, click here. (Courtesy of Philip Benjamin)
IDHA Presents a “Transformative Mental Health Core Curriculum”
The Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA) offers a self-paced, virtual mental health curriculum containing more than 20 hours of original video content. Its eight modules include “how racism, ableism, and other forms of oppression intersect with mental health; diverse narratives of lived experience and the powerful impact of grassroots movements, past and present; a variety of community-based and peer-led practices that support healing; and a transformative mental health lens and how to apply it to your life and work.” For more information and to register, click here. (Courtesy of N.A.P.S. News Brief)
Crestwood’s Recovery Resilience Solutions Offers “Welcome to Recovery Practices”
The latest podcast by Recovery Resilience Solutions is about “the power of a recovery-based welcoming practice.” Dr. Lori Ashcraft writes: “In this podcast on welcoming, I give you lots of ideas about how to welcome (not intake) people into your programs. It is so important to get this right because it’s the first and lasting impression the person has of both us and our program. We can set the stage for a solid working relationship, or for a struggle as you try to connect later on.” For a link to the podcast and more information about “Viva La Evolution,” click here.
OPPORTUNITIES
“Submit Future Research Topics by March 30 to Effective Health Care Program”
“Nominations for new research topics for Effective Health Care (EHC) Program evidence reviews are due March 30, 2024. AHRQ [Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality] encourages the public to participate in the agency’s EHC Program, which conducts evidence reviews to inform healthcare decision-making on drugs, devices, surgeries, and approaches to healthcare delivery.” For information about how to submit a research topic, click here. Questions? epc@ahrq.hhs.gov. (Courtesy of Elizabeth R. Stone)
ISEPP Seeks Contributions for an Upcoming Volume of Its Series on Critical Psychology and Critical Psychiatry, and Has Published Two More Volumes in the Series
ISEPP (International Society for Ethical Psychology & Psychiatry) seeks “authors to contribute to an upcoming volume of the Ethics International Press Critical Psychology and Critical Psychiatry Series. Don't miss the opportunity to speak your mind.” Contact any of these editors with your ideas for a chapter: Eric Maisel, PhD, ericmaisel@hotmail.com; Arnold Cantu, MSW, Arnold.Cantu@colostate.edu; Chuck Ruby, PhD, docruby@me.com. ISEPP has also released two more volumes in the series: Theoretical Alternatives to the Psychiatric Model of Mental Disorder Labeling: Contemporary Frameworks, Taxonomies, and Models and Practical Alternatives to the Psychiatric Model of Mental Illness: Beyond DSM and ICD Diagnosing.
“International [Anonymous] Survey of People Who Have Had Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), and Their Family and Friends”
Researchers at the University of East London (UK) write, “The purpose is to understand the experience of Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT), in order to enhance the information given to people being offered ECT, and their families. This is your opportunity to share your experiences of this treatment, positive and negative. The survey is for people around the world who have received ECT at any time (except the past month). It is also for relatives or friends of people who have received ECT and are aware of how ECT affected that person.” For details and to complete the survey, click here.
UIC Researchers Are Recruiting for Two Studies, Both with Cash Incentives
Researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago are recruiting for two studies: “a program where you work with a personal virtual wellness coach to improve your wellbeing and quality of life,” and a “research study testing an online program called Enhancing Your Immune Health.” Participants in the wellbeing study “have a 50/50 chance of either receiving the new program or receiving an extra payment instead, but everyone will be paid $100 to complete two phone interviews.” Participants in the immune health study “have a 50/50 chance of either receiving the new program or receiving an extra payment instead, but everyone will be paid $135 for completing three phone interviews." To find out if you are eligible for the wellbeing study, email HealthyReStart2021@gmail.com or text/call 1-312-725-2966. To find out if you are eligible for the immune health study, email enhanceimmune@gmail.com or text/call: 1-312-725-2966. When texting or leaving a message, please let UIC know which study you're interested in, and provide your name, phone number, and email address. (Judith Cook, PhD, is the principal investigator of both studies; Jessica Jonikas, MA, is the co-investigator.)
SAMHSA Is Recruiting Peer Grant Reviewers. Do You Qualify?
“SAMHSA's three Centers are always looking for qualified grant peer reviewers who can evaluate applications for discretionary grants,” SAMHSA writes. “SAMHSA peer reviewers must have related program experience and education.” (SAMHSA's Office of Recovery has confirmed that peer reviewers do not need a graduate degree.) One incentive to apply is that “[r]eviewers will receive $140 per application reviewed and returned to SAMHSA in the timeline specified for each program.” For details about qualifications for peer reviewers and how to apply, click here.
TU Collaborative Seeks Input on Its Community Integration Calendars
The Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion writes: “Each year, we release a calendar resource designed to help individuals engage more in the community!” The TU Collaborative is considering adding a guided component and would like your input on how to structure it. For more information and to participate in an anonymous survey, click here.
“Are You a Leader with a CMHC? Partner with the Temple University Collaborative!”
“The Clinical Treatment Act is a new law to encourage participation of low-income and minoritized healthcare recipients in research as a matter of equity. The Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion seeks to partner with community mental health centers (CMHCs) across the U.S. to help get information about current and future research studies to service recipients in various programs. In return we are also available to support your organization with free trainings and other supports. Please contact Professor Bryan McCormick (bryan.mccormick@temple.edu) about this important partnership opportunity.” To read this announcement online, click here.
Researchers Seek to Better Understand the Day-to-Day Social Experiences of People Diagnosed with Serious Mental Health Conditions
The Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion seeks participants diagnosed with serious mental health conditions to participate in a paid research study of their “day-to-day experiences of social isolation and loneliness…so that we can develop better interventions for people in the future.” Eligible participants will complete an intake interview (for a $20 gift card) and an exit interview (for a $30 gift card). Four one-minute surveys will be sent via smart phone in the 14 days between interviews. Questions? Contact drrp@temple.edu or (215) 204-3230.
Research Opportunity for Young Adult Peer Supporters
The Mental Health Services Research Lab of the Temple University College of Public Health invites youth peer support workers ages 18-30 who are currently working full-time or part-time in a peer support role to participate in a survey that aims to gather information about their workplace experiences. Questions? Contact Elizabeth Thomas at 215.204.1699 or elizabeth.thomas@temple.edu, or Haley Payne at haleypayne097@gmail.com. Those who complete the survey may be entered into a raffle to win cash prizes! For the Informed Consent Form and the survey, click here.
EPICC Works to Help Parents with Mental Health Conditions Connect with Their Kids
Engaging Parents and Increasing Connections with Children (EPICC) is a 10-week program created by the Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion that is focused on helping parents with serious mental health conditions connect with their children through meaningful activities. For details and to apply, click here.
Young Adults with Psychiatric Diagnoses Are Sought for Study on Community Participation
The Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion is recruiting young adults (ages 18-30) with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depression to take part in ConnectionsRx, designed to support engagement in meaningful community activities. Participants will be enrolled in the peer-led study for six months, and receive support to help meet community participation goals. Interviews (approximately 60 minutes each) will take place on Zoom. Participants will receive a $30 Amazon or Visa gift card (to a maximum of $90) for each survey completed. For the website, click here. Questions? Write to ConnectionsRx@temple.edu.
Are You Interested in Pursuing Graduate School and/or a Research Career? Read Below.
Stephania Hayes (UC Davis), Shannon Pagdon (Columbia/NYS Psychiatric Institute/University of Pittsburgh), and Nev Jones (University of Pittsburgh) write: “We are gathering information from people with lived experience in the Coordinated Specialty Care (CSC) or early psychosis space (including peer specialists, current/former CSC participants, and CSC youth coordinators) who are potentially interested in pursuing graduate school and/or a research career. All of us identify as having lived experience, work in CSC, and are invested in supporting the next generation of scholars who also have lived experience. We would like to create a discussion group and/or other supports for people interested in this career path. The link below leads to a very brief survey that will help us understand the level of interest in such supports, as well as areas of career interest. (Please note that this is not a research study.)” To participate in the anonymous survey, click here.
“Help Us Map the Landscape of Lived Experience and Family Involvement in 988 Policy and Related Crisis Response System Planning!”
“As 988 implementation rolls out alongside additional efforts to strengthen crisis response systems throughout the U.S., it's important to gauge the extent to which direct stakeholders (i.e., individuals who use or have used mental health crisis services and their families) have been involved in related policy, implementation and evaluation at the local, regional, state or federal levels. To map out involvement nationally, Mental Health America (lead: Kelly Davis), Nev Jones (University of Pittsburgh) and Keris Myrick (National Association of Peer Supporters) have developed a survey aimed at documenting the extent of stakeholder involvement, the forms this involvement has taken, and, where available, what concerns stakeholders have raised. Any individual with knowledge of lived experience and family involvement is eligible to participate; individuals completing the survey do not have to have lived experience themselves.” For more information and to access the survey, click here.
Survey Seeks Respondents Who Have Taken Mental Health Courses Involving Their Own Diagnoses
Have you taken a mental health course that covers a diagnosis you have? If so, you are invited to participate in a brief, anonymous, online survey--designed by a University of Pittsburgh MSW student--about what it's like for students with lived experience to study their own diagnoses in a classroom. The survey covers students' experiences of studying such subjects as "abnormal psychology," "psychopathology," and diagnosis and assessment when their own diagnoses are covered. "The goal of the project is to better understand what it feels like to take courses in which someone’s diagnosis is being taught/defined/discussed. There is currently no literature or reporting on the experiences of students in the above circumstances, or the associated impact." Interested? Please click here. Questions? Please email the project lead, Charlie Clement, at cjc204@pitt.edu
Peer Support in Higher Education Survey Seeks Respondents
“Peer support programs are growing on college campuses across the U.S. Mental Health America, Doors to Wellbeing, and the Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion want to better understand the availability of peer support in higher education as well as the experiences and needs of students accessing peer support programs…We hope to use this research to support the expansion of peer support in higher education, including developing a national database of peer support programs in higher education and documenting pressing issues in campus programs…You may also indicate if you are interested in having your school’s peer support program listed in a national database of peer support programs in higher education.” For more information and to complete the survey, click here.
Supported Education Survey Needs Your Help
Do you operate a program that provides dedicated supported education services for individuals with psychiatric disabilities/mental health conditions? If so, you are invited to complete the survey at the link below. The primary goal of the survey is to help create a National Supported Education Database (NSEdD) that will be "a searchable listing of diverse supported education programs and services for individuals experiencing psychiatric disabilities and/or mental health challenges...across the US and its territories." The NSEdD project is sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and co-administered by the five SAMHSA-funded national consumer and consumer-supporter technical assistance centers, in collaboration with research partners Drs. Nev Jones (University of Pittsburgh) and Mark Salzer (Temple University). For a link to the survey, which includes a definition of supported education, click here. For a flyer with information about the survey, click here.
National Survey on Student Rights, Discrimination, and Accommodations in Higher Education Seeks Respondents
"Have you experienced psychiatric disability-based discrimination or the denial of an accommodation in a postsecondary institution in the United States? Interested in informing national advocacy focus on psych disability rights in higher ed? Mental Health America (lead: Kelly Davis) and collaborators Dr. Nev Jones (University of Pittsburgh), Stefanie Kaufman-Mthimkhulu (Project LETS) and Brit Vanneman Esq. (Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law) have developed "a survey aimed at providing a more comprehensive understanding of student experiences of campus-based discrimination, mandated leaves of absence, and/or denial of academic, administrative and/or student-work accommodations in the U.S. Data will be used to inform national advocacy efforts and future projects, and in reports, presentations and publications." For eligibility and to access the survey, click here.
If You've Had, or Been Labeled with, "Negative Symptoms" in the Context of Psychosis...
"If you have experienced or been labeled with 'negative symptoms' in the context of psychosis, please consider contributing an anonymous account of your views and experiences," Dr. Nev Jones writes. "Currently, there is nowhere one can go to find lived experience perspectives/accounts on this topic—even though 'negative symptoms' regularly feature in research and clinical trials. Help us change this!" This survey is a companion to Psychosis Outside the Box; for that survey, click here. For more information and/or to share your story about "negative symptoms," click here.
“Are You Between the Ages of 21 and 60 and Drink Alcohol?”
"Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are seeking adults--[both smokers and non-smokers]--to study whether a gene and smoking may affect drinking alcohol. Volunteers should be healthy and drug-free, and not seeking treatment for alcohol-related problems. Research participation includes three outpatient visits at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD; alcohol consumption; brain scans (MRI), blood draws, and filling out questionnaires. There is no cost to participate and compensation may be provided." For more information, click here. (Courtesy of Fran Hazam)
TU Collaborative Seeks Participants for Its Parenting Through Leisure Project; See Also the TU Collaborative's Parenting Resources, Including Information on Custody Issues
The Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion is seeking parents with lived experience of a mental health condition to participate in a paid research study. The TU Collaborative writes: "Our program, Parenting Through Leisure, focuses on helping parents with a serious mental illness participate in leisure activities with their child. We are looking for individuals who are 18 and older; are an adult parent with a diagnosis of schizophrenia-spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, or depression; have a child who is 7 to 15 years old and is interested in participating in family leisure with you; have legal visitation rights, joint custody or full custody of the child, with at least weekly contact; and have a desire to engage in more leisure activities with their child." For details about the study and the remuneration as well as other benefits to eligible participants, and a link to sign up, click here. Questions? Please contact TUCollab@temple.edu. And for the TU Collaborative's Parenting web page--which includes links to many resources for parents with lived experience, including information about custody laws and a model family reunification statute--click here.
Survey Seeks Respondents Who Are in Administrative/ Leadership Positions in the Mental Health Field
If you are in an administrative/leadership position in the mental health arena, “the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (GAP) Committee on Psychiatric Administration and Leadership invites you to participate in the International Survey on Administrative Psychiatry. The survey has two purposes: 1. To identify the concerns and needs of mental health professionals/psychiatrists in administrative and leadership positions. 2. To determine training needs in administrative psychiatry. We ask you to complete this brief, [15- to 20-minute] questionnaire to help us in developing recommendations for action. We also want to let you know that, if you fill out this questionnaire, you permit the committee to use your anonymous data for scientific work.” Peer providers are included. For the survey, click here. (Courtesy of Oryx Cohen)
International Survey on Antipsychotic Medication Withdrawal Seeks Respondents
“Have you taken antipsychotic medication (such as Zyprexa, Seroquel, Abilify, Risperdal, Haldol, Geodon, Stelazine, and others), for any condition or diagnosis, with or without other medications? And did you ever stop taking antipsychotics, or try to stop taking them? Are you 18 years or older? If yes, you can take this survey about antipsychotic withdrawal and attempts to withdraw, including if you stopped taking them completely or if you tried to come off and still take them. The survey aims to improve mental health services by better understanding medication withdrawal. Lead researcher is Will Hall, a therapist and Ph.D. student who has himself taken antipsychotics. Service users/survivors/consumers from around the world also gave input. The study is sponsored by Maastricht University in the Netherlands; co-sponsors include the International Institute for Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal. Questions? Please contact will.hall@maastrichtuniversity.nl.” For more information or to take the survey, click on www.antipsychoticwithdrawalsurvey.com
PENTAC Is Seeking Speakers on Leadership and Professional Development for Peers
“We’re looking for engaging speakers in the Northeast, Southwest, West, and/or Midwest regions,” PENTAC (Peer Experience National TA Center) writes. Topics include “Mapping out a personal career advancement plan,” “Gain and enhance your presentation skills,” “What employers want: resume and interviewing skills,” and “What funders want: how to pitch your ideas.” For more information, email Sherry Warner at sherry@peersupportfl.org
TU Collaborative Wants to Hear Your Story!
“We are working on a project to better understand social connections among adults with significant mental health challenges,” the Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion writes. “We are seeking your stories on your social connections generally” and “what those connections mean to you.” The TU Collaborative will compile these stories based on a series of brief surveys. For details and to share your story, click here.
Mad In America Invites You to Submit Your Personal Story (Within Certain Guidelines)
Mad In America writes: “A ‘personal story’ is defined as your story of being in relationship to psychiatry and/or the mental health system, whatever that means to you. It might involve your opinions and analysis of what happened to you, as well. It can be about a specific event, or about your overall journey, provided it fits the length requirements (1,500 to 3,000 words) and has a narrative arc. The piece should be about your personal experiences, not psychiatry or the mental health system in general. Submissions should fall under the theme of rethinking psychiatry and the mental health system, and should be original works not previously published elsewhere. For examples of the types of stories we publish, view our personal stories archive here.” For more information and/or to submit a personal story, click here.
Hearing Voices Network Is Now Hosting Online Groups
“There are now ONLINE opportunities to connect, share experiences, and find mutual support,” the Hearing Voices Network (HVN) writes. “These groups are accessible via web-based platforms and by phone…Online groups are specifically for those with personal lived experience with hearing voices, seeing visions, and/or negotiating alternative realities. They are voice-hearer facilitated. With further questions and for details on how to access the group[s], please email info@hearingvoicesusa.org.” To read this announcement online and for more information, click here.
Virtual Group Works to Advance Peer Research Capacity, Leadership, and Involvement
Nev Jones, PhD—a strong advocate for building research capacity, leadership, and involvement among peers, survivors, and service users—leads a virtual group dedicated to this effort. Dr. Jones—assistant professor, School of Social Work, University of Pittsburgh—was part of the team that developed “User/Survivor Leadership & Capacity Building in Research: White Paper on Promoting Engagement Practices in Peer Evaluation/Research (PEPPER),” published by the Lived Experience Research Network. For the white paper, click here. Anyone interested in joining the virtual group can email Nev at nev.inbox@gmail.com.
RESOURCES
“The Ethics of Survivor Research: Guidelines for the Ethical Conduct of Research Carried Out by Mental Health Service Users and Survivors”
“Drawing on the experience of survivors and service users, [this accessible manual] considers key issues such as informed consent and confidentiality with particular reference to mental health settings.” For more information and to download the free, 56-page manual, click here. (Courtesy of Konstantina Poursanidou)
WHO Publishes Operational Framework for Monitoring Social Determinants of Health Equity
The World Health Organization writes: “This Operational Framework for Monitoring Social Determinants of Health Equity provides countries with critical guidance on monitoring the social determinants of health–broadly defined as the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, and people’s access to power, money and resources–and actions addressing them, and using data for policy action across sectors to improve health equity. The publication is meant as a resource for national governments and their partners.” For more information and to download the free 140-page manual, click here.
IAAPA Proposes a Pathway to End Coercive Psychiatry
Following up on the landmark report on “Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation” --launched on October 9, 2023, by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights–the International Association Against Psychiatric Assault (IAAPA) has issued a proposal to end coercive psychiatry. For details, click here. (Courtesy of Dan Fisher) To download the 208-page “Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation: Guidance and Practice”—originally reported in the September 23 edition of the Key Update—click here.
SAMHSA’s Overdose Prevention and Response Toolkit
“SAMHSA’s updated Overdose Prevention and Response Toolkit provides guidance to a wide range of individuals on preventing and responding to an overdose. The toolkit also emphasizes that harm reduction and access to treatment are essential aspects of overdose prevention.” For more information and to download the free toolkit, click here.
“Embracing Authenticity: A Guide to Authenticity and Cultural Awareness at Work”
“This comprehensive guide is designed to support BIPOC employees, allies, and leadership in fostering a more inclusive and supportive workplace environment,” the New England MHTTC writes. “By recognizing and addressing the unique challenges faced by People of Color, promoting allyship, and empowering leadership, we can create a workplace where everyone feels valued, supported, and able to thrive. This guide provides practical strategies, exercises, and resources to enhance well-being and promote equity within your organization.” To download the free 65-page guide and to view a series of webinars for guidance and support for the use and implementation of the guide, click here.
“Study: To Reduce Jail Populations, Increase Mental Health Services in Communities”
A new study by researchers at George Mason University “concludes that U.S. jails are de facto mental health institutions, with nearly 10 times as many individuals with serious mental health conditions in prisons and jails than in state psychiatric hospitals. The study also found that access to affordable healthcare services and behavioral health treatment in the community changes how the jail is used and reduces the size of the jail population.” For more information and a link to the study, click here.”
“Solving Homelessness Through Better Information”
At the link below are six reports about how to address homelessness in the Portland, Oregon, region. Although the reports, by Homeless Strategic Initiatives of Portland, are geared specifically for the Portland area, many of their lessons are broadly applicable. For the reports, click here. (Courtesy of Jacek Haciak)
Testimony on ECT by Acclaimed Author Linda Andre Is Available on YouTube
The 2000 presentation on ECT by shock survivor Linda Andre to a legislatively mandated committee chaired by the Vermont Department of Mental Health is now available on YouTube. Linda Andre wrote the acclaimed and authoritative book Doctors of Deception: What They Don't Want You to Know About Shock Treatment (2009), called “brilliant analysis” and “a masterpiece of scientific writing” by the International Journal of Risk and Safety in Medicine. For the 33-minute video, click here. (Courtesy of Laura Ziegler and Jim Gottstein)
SAMHSA TIP 59: “Improving Cultural Competence”
“The primary objective of this TIP [Treatment Improvement Protocol] is to assist readers in understanding the role of culture in the delivery of behavioral health services (both generally and with reference to specific cultural groups).” For the free, 341-page manual, click here.
“The State of Mental Health in America”
“Millions of adults in the U.S. experience serious thoughts of suicide, with the highest rate among multiracial individuals,” according to Mental Health America’s report on “The State of Mental Health in America.” Among other “2023 Key Findings” is that “[o]ver half (54.7%) of adults with a mental illness do not receive treatment, totaling over 28 million individuals,” and “[o]ver 1 in 10 youth in the U.S. are experiencing depression that is severely impairing their ability to function at school or work, at home, with family, or in their social life.” In addition, “59.8% of youth with major depression do not receive any mental health treatment.” To download a free copy of the report, click here.
World Mental Health Report: Transforming Mental Health for All
“The World Mental Health Report: Transforming Mental Health for All is designed to inspire and inform better mental health for everyone everywhere. Drawing on the latest evidence available, showcasing examples of good practice from around the world, and voicing people’s lived experience, it highlights why and where change is most needed and how it can best be achieved. It calls on all stakeholders to work together to deepen the value and commitment given to mental health, reshape the environments that influence mental health, and strengthen the systems that care for mental health.” For the free, 296-page report by the World Health Organization (WHO), click here.
“Mental Health Crisis Services: Promoting Person-Centred (sic) and Rights-based Approaches”
The World Health Organization (WHO), which published this 80-page “Technical Package” in 2021, writes: “By showcasing good practice mental health services from around the world this guidance supports countries to develop and reform community-based services and responses from a human rights perspective, promoting key rights such as equality, non-discrimination, legal capacity, informed consent and community inclusion. It offers a roadmap towards ending institutionalization and involuntary hospitalization and treatment and provides specific action steps for building mental health services that respect every person’s inherent dignity.” For the manual, click here.
Frontiers in Psychology Adds to Its Archive of Articles About Open Dialogue
The latest addition to Frontiers in Psychology’s trove of articles about Open Dialogue is “Open Dialogue services around the world: a scoping survey exploring organizational characteristics in the implementation of the Open Dialogue approach in mental health services.” For the article, published online on November 10, 2023, click here. For all 21 articles, click here. (Courtesy of Ann Kasper)
Prison Activist Resource Center (PARC) Directory Offers Helpful Resources
“PARC mails a free national directory of resources to prisoners, their friends and family members. This year, we have expanded the content and the directory is now 28 pages listing nearly 300 organizations serving folks on the inside!! Thank you to all of our community partners for supporting the mailing of this directory.” For the PARC website, which includes a link to the Directory, click here.
WHO and UN Publish Landmark Report on “Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation”
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have jointly issued an important report on “Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation: Guidance and Practice.” To view a video about the launch, click here. To download the 208-page publication, click here. ACTION ALERT: Share it with elected officials and mental health policymakers! (Courtesy of Janet Paleo) (The October 9, 2023, launch of the joint publication was announced in the September 2023 edition of the Key Update.)
“The Lived Experience of Depression: a Bottom-up Review Co-written by Experts by Experience and Academics”
"This journey in the lived experience of depression can also help us to understand the nature of our own emotions and feelings, what is to believe in something, what is to hope, and what is to be a living human being." For the article, click here. (Courtesy of Ann Kasper)
Movement History of the Consumer/ Client/ Survivor/ Expatient/ Ex-Inmate/ User Community
This 647-page comprehensive history and timeline, mostly compiled by award-winning mental health advocate Pat Risser (b. 1952, d. 2016), begins: “The history of the Consumer/ Client/ Survivor/ Ex-patient/ Ex-Inmate/ User Community is deeply enmeshed in and with other civil and human rights movements. To understand the depth of this intertwining, it is necessary to cover the history of slavery, women, children, people with disabilities, education, labor and other factors that play a role in creating who we are today.” To download the document, click here. (Courtesy of Judene Shelley)
“Report on Improving Mental Health Outcomes” Is Published
The Report’s Executive Summary begins: “The mental health system’s standard treatments are colossally counterproductive and harmful, often forced on unwilling patients. The overreliance on psychiatric drugs is reducing the recovery rate of people diagnosed with serious mental illness from a possible 80% to 5% and reducing their life spans by 20 years or so…” To download the free, 55-page report—by James B. (Jim) Gottstein, Esq.; Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD; David Cohen, PhD; Chuck Ruby, PhD; and Faith Myers—click here. (Note: The Report is intended to be used by advocates and is a modification of an earlier "White Paper," without the Alaska-specific information that it included. The "White Paper" was first included in the Key Update in April 2023, and in every subsequent edition in the “…But Still Fresh!” Department.)
MHA Offers "Evidence for Peer Support"
For Mental Health America's nine-page fact sheet offering evidence of the benefits of peer support, click here.
Wellness Activity Manual Helps People Learn Healthy New Behaviors & Habits
The free, 64-page Wellness Activity Manual: A Guide for Group Leaders “focuses on helping people with mental health conditions learn new behaviors and habits to improve their personal wellness. Each lesson has been constructed as a group activity that maximizes learning through building positive interpersonal relationships and actively involving participants. The Wellness Group meets weekly for one hour. The manual contains nine lessons focused on physical, emotional, and intellectual wellness. Each lesson can be used as a stand-alone group or combined into a multi-session series.” For more information and to download the free manual, click here.
“A Manual for Coping with Extraordinary and Remarkable Experiences”
“Extraordinary and remarkable experiences should not interfere with your mood and daily functioning. This manual will help you to keep your extraordinary experiences manageable in daily life, although your extraordinary experiences may be annoying and intruding at times. You can work through this manual with your therapist…Solutions will be sought for your problems. The described method consists of a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and an educational course.” For the free, 34-page manual, copyrighted in 2013 by Mark van der Gaag, Dorien Nieman, and David van den Berg, click here. (Courtesy of Yulia Mikhailova) Note: This manual has not been reviewed, so no judgment about its value should be inferred from its inclusion in this e-newsletter.
Lived Experience Leadership Offers Numerous Research Studies Focused on Peer Supporters
Lived Experience Leadership features the findings of 12 years of research studies focused on [the peer support] workforce in a range of settings, to foster a better understanding of and respect for Lived Experience as a distinct discipline and build clarity on what makes this work unique and valuable. Importantly, this body of research was led by Lived Experience researchers.” For the website, click here.
International Peer Respite/Soteria Summit Offers Abundant Related Resources
For numerous resources about peer respites, Soteria, and related movements, click here.
“SAMHSA TIP 64: “Incorporating Peer Support into Substance Use Disorder Treatment Services”
“This TIP [Treatment Improvement Protocol’ supports learning about the key aspects, functions, and uses of Peer Support Services (PSS) in recovery from problematic substance use, which will help providers, supervisors, and administrators in SUD treatmen tprograms getter understand and respond to these changes.” To download the free, 301-page document, click here.
Resources for Supervisors of Peer Workers Offered by BRSS TACS and Pat Deegan
BRSS TACS writes: “This group of resources helps supervisors understand how to supervise peer workers in behavioral health services.” For details, click here. And the Northwest MHTTC offers a recorded webinar on ”How supervision can help peer specialists remain peer when working on clinical teams,” presented by Pat Deegan. For details, click here.
“Podcast: The Rise in Forced Treatment and Abusive Guardianships”
“[M]illions of Americans are subjected to psychiatric detention or forced treatment every year. Often well meaning family members are trying to ‘help,’ but end up traumatizing and permanently damaging their loved ones. Join us as investigative journalist Rob Wipond explains how most states have broadened their criteria for psychiatrically detaining someone far beyond ‘imminent harm’ and that as a practical matter, this could happen to almost anyone.” For the podcast, click here.
“Alternatives to Coercion in Mental Health Settings: A Literature Review”
This 214-page report was commissioned by the United Nations Office at Geneva to inform the report of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It was published in 2018 by the Melbourne Social Equity Institute. To download the free report, click here.
“Training of Lived Experience Workforces: A Rapid Review of Content and Outcomes”
“Recently, the lived and living experience (LLE) workforce in mental health and alcohol and other drugs (AOD) sectors has expanded,” researchers at La Trobe University and the Self Help Addiction Resource Center in Australia write. “Despite widespread benefit of this inclusion, some LLE practitioners have encountered personal and professional challenges in their workforce roles…[W]e present recommendations for improving training processes for this workforce.” For the article, published in Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services (Springer), click here.
“WHO’s New Series to Enhance the Meaningful Engagement of People with Lived Experience”
The World Health Organization’s “new ‘Intention to Action’ series is tackling both an evidence gap and a lack of standardized approaches on how to include people with lived experience into decision- and policy-making…The first publication—‘People power: Perspectives from individuals with lived experience of non-communicable diseases, mental health conditions and neurological conditions’—includes six detailed case studies from 12 individuals with lived experience of diverse health conditions.” For more information and a link to download the 80-page publication, click here. (Courtesy of Matthew Jackman)
“What Is Mental Illness?”
“This conversation between Justin Garson (philosopher), Nev Jones (community mental health researcher), and Marco Ramos (psychiatrist/historian)”--sponsored by The Philosopher–“will aim to offer a sense of the scope of what is at stake in our understanding of mental illness, considering the place of biology, society, histories of oppression, evolution, and lived experience in such an understanding.” For the video, click here. (Courtesy of Kevin Fitts)
“Optimizing Recovery Funding, Volumes 1 & 2”
“In 2021, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) provided the Peer Recovery Center of Excellence (PR CoE) with supplemental funding for a special project to identify and recommend best practices and strategies to optimize funding for high-quality and effective recovery support services. The result was 'Volume 1: Barriers to Acquiring Funding for Organizations in the Ecosystem of Recovery Volume' and 'Volume 2: Strategies for State Funding of Recovery Support Services.'” To download the full, 130-page report, click here.
Common Threads: Stories of Survival & Recovery from Mental Illness
Common Threads: Stories of Survival & Recovery from Mental Illness, a 108-page compendium, includes “tales of survival and recovery” by a number of Floridians. To quote from the Introduction, “Many of the people in these stories have lived significant portions of their lives in psychiatric institutions, and only through their strengths have they found their way back to the community…In these tales, we hear about the importance of education and peer support…” To download the free document, click here.
“Crisis Now” Offers a “Roadmap to Safe, Effective Crisis Care”
The goal of Crisis Now: Transforming Crisis Services—led by the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) and developed with the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, and RI International—is “to provide all communities a roadmap to safe, effective crisis care that diverts people in distress from the emergency department and jail by developing a continuum of crisis care services that match people’s clinical needs.” Among the resources offered on the website are SAMHSA’s 80-page “National Guidelines for Behavioral Health Crisis Care Best Practice Toolkit” (2020), an “Overview of Crisis Funding Sources Available to States and Localities” (last updated March 2, 2022), and assessment tools, such as “How Does Your Crisis System Rate?” The Crisis Now partners write: “Are you interested in adding your organization to the list supporting Crisis Now, or do you have questions? Reach out to us at info@crisisnow.com. For the website, click here.
“What Is the Meaning of Life?” This Free Online Collection Offers Answers
Excellence Reporter offers more than “1,200 articles-interviews on ‘What Is the Meaning of Life?’ written by renowned spiritual leaders, mindfulness experts, great thinkers and authors, elders, artists, musicians, CEOs, etc.” The contributors include such renowned figures as Bertrand Russell; Carl Jung; the Dalai Lama; Eleanor Roosevelt; Epicurus; Erich Fromm; Kahlil Gibran; Buckminster Fuller; Robert Louis Stevenson; and Ron Bassman, executive director of MindFreedom International. To browse the free compendium, click here.
The UIC Center’s Solutions Suite for Health & Recovery Offers Free Tools
"The UIC Center offers tools, curricula, and implementation manuals for free use in community-based programs, peer-run programs, or one's own life. You can introduce the entire complement of products to foster improved health, wellness, and mental health recovery. Or, you can choose the ones that will work best for your program or your life. The Suite was developed in collaboration with Collaborative Support Programs of New Jersey. The UIC Center is funded by NIDILRR (National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research). For the UIC Solutions Suite for Health & Recovery, click here. (Courtesy of Peggy Swarbrick via Jacek Haciak)
U.S. Surgeon General Creates Community Toolkit for Addressing Health Misinformation
"The U.S. Surgeon General’s Community Toolkit for Addressing Health Misinformation, developed in collaboration with the HHS Office of Evaluation Sciences (OES), provides specific guidance and resources for health care providers, educators, librarians, faith leaders, and trusted community members to understand, identify, and stop the spread of health misinformation in their communities." For information about the toolkit (a 22-page overview of health misinformation, and resources to stop it), and links to a “Talk to Your Community About Health Misinformation” Infographic, a “Health Misinformation Checklist” Infographic, and the Surgeon General's press release, click here.
“Psychiatrist with Philosophical Interests” Leads “Conversations in Critical Psychiatry,” a Psychiatric Times Series
Awais Aftab, who describes himself as a "psychiatrist with philosophical interests" in his Twitter bio, leads "Conversations in Critical Psychiatry," which, he says, "explores critical and philosophical perspectives in psychiatry and engages with prominent commentators within and outside the profession who have made meaningful criticisms of the status quo." Among those interviewed are Jim Gottstein, author of The Zyprexa Papers, on “The Fight for Pharma Accountability and Psychiatric Rights”; Allen Frances, M.D., author of Saving Normal; Sandra Steingard, M.D., and G. Scott Waterman, M.D., on "Integrating Academic Inquiry and Reformist Activism in Psychiatry"; Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness, on "50 Shades of Misdiagnosis"; Kathy Flaherty, J.D., executive director of the Connecticut Legal Rights Project, Inc., on "Reconsidering Care and Coercion in Psychiatry"; Nev Jones, Ph.D., on "Phenomenology, Power, Polarization, and the Discourse on Psychosis"; Dainius Puras, M.D., on "Global Psychiatry's Crisis of Values"; and many others. For the archived interviews, click here.
U.S. DOL Releases Guidance on FMLA Leave and Mental Health
The U.S. Department of Labor’s newly issued Fact Sheet #280 about the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) explains when eligible employees may take FMLA leave to address mental health conditions, and new Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) offers additional information. (Although the FMLA covers public and private employers nationwide, only those private employers who have 50 or more employees for at least 20 workweeks in a year are required to provide their eligible employees with FMLA leave.) For details, click here.
“Where DNA and Medications Meet”
Not all drugs are effective for all people; therapeutic response rates for many drugs are only 50%-75%. “OneOme, co-founded by [the] Mayo Clinic, provides evidence-based pharmacogenomic solutions that help improve patient outcomes and reduce costs through more personalized medication decisions.” OneOme’s RightMed Test is “a doctor-ordered pharmacogenomic (PGx) test that analyzes your DNA and provides your doctors with genetic information to help them determine how you may respond to certain medications. The results may help your doctors reduce medication trial and error, minimize risk of side effects, save you time and money, and make more informed prescribing decisions. Because your DNA doesn’t change over time, your doctors can use your test results to make more personalized medication decisions for you over the course of your lifetime.” For more information, click here. (Courtesy of Robin Osborne)
“When There’s a Crisis, Call a Peer”
The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law has published a 94-page manual entitled “When There’s a Crisis, Call a Peer: How People with Lived Experience Make Mental Health Crisis Services More Effective.” “When peers support those in crisis, individuals who need help are less likely to be admitted to emergency rooms and hospitals to receive inpatient care. They are more likely to participate in community-based services—which can help them avoid future crises and resulting institutionalization or incarceration—and be more engaged in the services they receive. They experience less self-stigma and more self-empowerment and hope. They are less likely to need crisis services in the future.” For the manual, click here. (Courtesy of Jacek Haciak)
“New Federal Guidance for Alternatives to Police for People with Behavioral Health or Other Disabilities”
The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law and the Vera Institute have published a seven-page report entitled “New Federal Guidance for Alternatives to Police for People with Behavioral Health or Other Disabilities.” “Vera and the Bazelon Center agree with the new guidance, from the U.S. Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Health and Human Services (HHS), that ‘jurisdictions should not assume that the proper response to a crisis is always to send law enforcement.’” Boiling down the guidance, they write, “sending police in response to a mental health crisis where there is no immediate safety risk to the public is discriminatory and violates civil rights laws.” For the seven-page document, click here. (Courtesy of Jacek Haciak)
SAMHSA Publishes Results from the 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)
“This infographic accompanies the more comprehensive NSDUH annual national report. Together, they provide researchers, clinicians, policymakers, and the public with data that can be used to better understand and improve the nation’s behavioral health,” SAMHSA writes. For the 21-page infographic, click here. For the 162-page “Key Substance Use and Mental Health Indicators in the United States: Results from the 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health,” click here.
“New Year’s Resolutions: Building Good Mental Health Habits”
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration recently published some suggestions about building good mental health habits. SAMHSA writes: “Setting New Year’s resolutions can be a positive way to focus on self-improvement, but it's important to approach them in a manner that promotes good mental health and well-being and maximizes our chances of sticking with them.” For SAMHSA’s guidance, click here. And for “Top 8 New Year's Resolutions to Make if You Have Anxiety: Making unrealistic New Year's resolutions can be damaging to your mental health. Here's how to do it right,” click here. And for “9 Mental-Health Resolutions for 2024, According to Therapists,” click here.
“Mental Health in the Criminal Justice System: What to Expect When You or a Family Member Is Arrested or Incarcerated”
The American Psychiatric Association, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) offer an 11-page guide on “Mental Health in the Criminal Justice System: What to Expect When You or a Family Member is Arrested or Incarcerated.” The guide includes “Helpful tips for individuals and family members,” “What happens if an individual is found guilty,” “What happens after release from incarceration,” and more. For the guide, click here.
Two Mental Health Toolkits Can Help Develop, Maintain, and Expand Rural Mental Health Services
The Rural Health Information Hub offers the “Mental Health in Rural Communities Toolkit,” which “features evidence-based models, resources, and program examples for the successful development and implementation of mental health programs to serve rural communities,” and the “Rural Suicide Prevention Toolkit,” which “highlights innovative, evidence-based models and resources to develop and implement successful suicide prevention programs in rural communities.” For more about rural mental health, click here. (Courtesy of Amy Smith)
Disclaimer: The Clearinghouse does not necessarily endorse the opinions and opportunities included in the Key Update.
About the Key Update
The National Mental Health Consumers’ Self-Help Clearinghouse is affiliated with the Temple University Collaborative on Community Inclusion. The Key Update is the free monthly e-newsletter of the National Mental Health Consumers’ Self-Help Clearinghouse. Volume 20, No. 10, April 2024. For content, reproduction or publication information, please contact Susan Rogers at selfhelpclearinghouse@gmail.com. Follow Susan on Twitter at @SusanRogersMH