Treatment Advocacy Center Receives Prestigious Peg’s Award For Advocating On Behalf Of Individuals With Serious Mental Illnesses

Treatment Advocacy Center’s Lisa Dailey accepts award. (Peg’s foundation photo.)

(11-15-22) The Ohio based Peg’s Foundation recently announced recipients of its 2022 Morgan Impact Awards for mental health and chose the Treatment Advocacy Center for its Excellence in Advocacy award. TAC’s Executive Director Lisa Dailey accepted the award on behalf of the non-profit organization.

The Morgan Impact Awards, established in 2010, recognize individuals and organizations for their outstanding achievements in mental health, education and the arts.

Peg’s Foundation is one of the larger mental health foundations. It was endowed by Margaret ‘Peg” Clark Morgan and her husband Burton whose son, Dave, was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Despite the family’s wealth, they struggled to find suitable treatment for Dave. “(Peg) was a mom who loved her son and wanted the best for him, and this illness wouldn’t always allow that for him,” recalled Rick Kellar, Peg’s Foundation President. “They couldn’t find the help and support to fulfill his needs to recover.” Peg Morgan died in 2013 at age 95.

The Foundation’s goal is to “promote and help implement promising and evidence-based practices that can create the immediate and urgently-needed opportunities to improve the lives of people with serious mental illness and their families.” It listed assets worth $106 million and annual revenues of $40 million in its most recent public filing. (Click here to read about Peg and Burton “Burt” D. Morgan’s personal life and business acumen.)

Last year, I was honored to receive the Foundation’s Compass Award for advocacy, joining the ranks of Dr. Fred Frese, a nationally known advocate who lived with schizophrenia; Dr. Mark Munetz, co-creator of the Sequential Intercept Model; Dr. Michael F. Hogan, former director of Ohio mental health services and chair of President  George W. Bush’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health; and Alison Malmon, founder of Active Minds.

This year’s winners are: Excellence in Arts: Weathervane Playhouse – Melanie YC Pepe, Chief Executive, and Artistic Director; Excellence in Mental Health: NAMI Wayne and Holmes Counties, Helen Walkerly, Executive Director; Excellence in Advocacy,   Treatment Advocacy Center, Lisa Dailey, Executive Director; The Compass Award: Douglas A. Smith, M.D., Medical Director/CCO County of Summit ADM Board.

The Treatment Advocacy Center (TAC) is a national nonprofit organization dedicated “to eliminating legal and clinical barriers to timely and humane treatment for millions of Americans with severe brain disorders who are not receiving appropriate medical care.” Founded in 1998, “TAC serves as a catalyst to achieve proper balance in judicial and legislative decisions that affect the lives of persons with … criminal justice, and legislative communities on the benefits of assisted treatment, also known as involuntary commitment, in an effort to decrease homelessness, jailings, suicide, violence and other devastating consequences caused by lack of treatment,” according to its website and financial disclosures.

Here is a short film that Peg’s Foundation’s Victoria Romanda and her team produced for the gala announcing TAC’s award.

Excellence in Advocacy – Treatment Advocacy Center from Peg’s Foundation on Vimeo.

The Treatment Advocacy Center is funded by a host of individual donors, foundations and grants. The Treatment Advocacy Center does not accept funding from companies or entities involved in the sale, marketing or distribution of pharmaceutical products. This stance is unusual in the mental health advocacy field. It accepts donations here.

About the author:

Pete Earley is the bestselling author of such books as The Hot House and Crazy. When he is not spending time with his family, he tours the globe advocating for mental health reform.

Learn more about Pete.