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Eight Steps Your Community Can Take To Launch A Jail Diversion Program

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(12-11-20) FROM MY FILES FRIDAY: Cynthia Kemp, a deputy director at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, told attendees at a mental health summit two years ago how Arlington County, Va., created a jail diversion program that now is considered one of the best in the nation. Her advice is worth reading.

How To Launch A Jail Diversion Program In YOUR community

“Begin by finding a champion,” Cynthia Kemp told the 300 community leaders, who were invited by Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy (R.) to a Louisiana Mental Health Summit in Baton Rogue. (A short news clip where both Sen. Cassidy and I are interviewed can be watched here.)

Kemp said it could be a judge, sheriff, police chief, state legislator, mayor – anyone who understands that locking up people who are sick is a waste of tax dollars and human potential.

Step Two: Hit the streets. Talk to the police to learn what problems they face because of persons with mental illnesses becoming entrapped in the criminal justice system. The National Alliance on Mental Illness  reports that 40% of persons with a serious mental illness will have an encounter with the police. By some estimates, as high as 49% of all fatal police shootings involve someone with a mental illness. Advocates must also speak with public defenders, judges, prosecutors, local mental health providers, parents and persons with lived experience – and identify what barriers they have encountered preventing individuals from getting community mental health care.

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Judge Steven Leifman: My Choice For Most Important Advocate During 2020

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The Definition of Insanity Film Documents The Success Of Judge Leifman’s Reforms In Miami Dade

(12-7-20) Miami Dade Judge Steven Leifman is my choice for the most impactful player in mental health during 2020.

For a decade, Judge Leifman has worked tirelessly to reform how our criminal justice system interacts with individuals with mental illnesses. He has traveled across the nation educating judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys about the so-called Miami Model that has become the gold standard in our nation for reducing violence, unnecessary arrests, and inappropriate incarceration. The model encourages recovery, reduces stigma, and gives individuals hope.

Judge Leifman’s approach has a proven and impressive track record.

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3 New Books By Advocates About Mental Illnesses & Recovery

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(7-22-20) Advocates who have written for my blog or spoken to me personally are releasing three new books about mental illness. The titles are:

A Family Guide to Mental Health Recovery: What You Need to Know from Day One by Virgil Stucker and Stephanie McMahon.

He Came In With It: A Portrait of Motherhood and Madness by Miriam Feldman

Fix What You Can by Mindy Greiling

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Joined By Bestselling Author Of Hidden Valley Road, 3 Mothers Describe Their Experiences With Adult Children With SMIs

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(6-1-20) My son, Kevin, is a certified peer specialist – a person with a serious mental illness in recovery who helps others with their mental illnesses. I’m proud of him and his work.

Unfortunately and unnecessarily, peers are sometimes viewed as being adversaries to parents and families. This is counter productive. The same thinking that applies to peers can be said about parents and families. Only a parent or family member can fully understand what that experience involves. Parents handle issues differently. Some better than others. But teamwork is more productive than head butting, especially when each side should have the same goal, which should be helping an individual prosper.

The voices of family members are important. I remember vividly what a brother told me about his sister when I interviewed him in Miami for my book. He told me that his sister had schizophrenia and during the past 30 years she had been seen by two dozen psychiatrists, assigned three times that number of social workers, and had been arrested, and appeared before judges. When all of those doctors, social workers and judges were gone, he was still with her picking up the pieces.

It is important for parents to talk about their experiences. I am delighted that Randye Kaye, an author, public speaker, and mental health activist, invited two other mothers of adult children with serious mental illnesses to participate in a video discussion. Baltimore advocate Laura Pogliano and Miriam Feldman, both have written for this blog.

In addition, Kaye invited Robert Kolker, the New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family to join their discussion. Kolker’s book chronicles the experiences of the Galvin family, a midcentury American family in Colorado Springs with twelve children, six of whom have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Kolker’s book is a selection of the revived Oprah’s Book Club.

Thank you Randye Kaye, Laura Pogliano with SARDAA, and Miriam Feldman for sharing your experiences. Kaye is the author of  Ben Behind His Voices.  Feldman’s book, He Came In With It: A Portrait of Motherhood and Madness, will be available July 21st. Here is an NPR interview with Kolker about Hidden Valley Road.

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Who Shows Love To A Seriously Mentally Ill Convicted Felon? Tom Mullen Did & Taught Me Important Lessons.

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Four Novices in Esopus 1962 — 1963 Tom Mullen on far left. Marist College courtesy of  Rick Mundy.

(4-28-20) News articles about how difficult it is for many Americans to practice social distancing and self isolation caused me to think of Thomas Peter Mullen, the founder of Passageway in Miami, Florida, and the valuable lessons that he taught me.

With pure white hair that tapered into an equally white beard and a fondness for wearing blue jeans with a tattered Navy blazer, Mullen lived modestly and enjoyed engaging in long discussion about morality, spirituality, and an individual’s mission and purpose in life.

I remember his staff at the halfway house that he ran keeping him occupied in another part of the building when a pharmaceutical rep dropped by with samples of the antipsychotic Abilify.  Passageway operated on a barebones budget and the staff was happy to receive free samples, but they knew Mullen would go into a tirade if he encountered the rep. Mullen believed drug companies should give medicines free to those who needed them, not profit from their sales.

Mullen had grown up in a tough Irish Catholic neighborhood in the Bronx and after his father had been swept overboard and drowned during a nor’easter while fishing in the Atlantic, Mullen’s mother had asked the Marist Brothers, a religious order dedicated to helping the underprivileged, to take her grieving teenage son under its wing. He joined the order and was eventually sent to Miami where he ran a methadone clinic but soon got into trouble for permitting social workers to discuss the pros and cons of abortion with pregnant drug abusers.

He left the church to launch a halfway house in 1979 for seriously mentally ill felons being freed back into the Miami community. By the time we met, Mullen had overcome tremendous obstacles in keeping Passageway open, including having ten thousand residents sign a petition demanding that it be forced to move from the residents’ neighborhood after a newspaper disclosed its location.

Mullen was dogged and resilient – but this blog is about loneliness and forgiveness.

Let’s begin with a murder.

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Lessons I’ve Learned As A Parent: Virgil Stucker Interviews Me On His Podcast About Hope, Healing, & Trends

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(1-15-2020) Long-time mental health worker and advocate Virgil Stucker recently interviewed me for his Mental Horizons Podcast.  Virgil is best-known as the former founding executive director of the CooperRiis Healing Community, “retiring” after a forty-year career working in therapeutic communities. He now runs Virgil Stucker Associates, a private firm that “empowers mental health decision making for families and individuals… advocating for integrative, holistic solutions to the challenges of mental illnesses.”

In this episode, I talk about my book, CRAZY: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness, what helped my son, and the challenges and successes we face as parents and advocates.

From his website:

Being psychotic is not a crime: Pete Earley, celebrated author & father, is taking action.

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