Senate confirmation hearing of Dr. Elinore
McCance-Katz as the first assistant secretary for mental health and
substance abuse: What the Treatment Advocacy Center has accomplished
Yesterday's confirmation
hearing represented a monumental moment
for mental health reform and signals a new direction in how our government
prioritizes mental illness care. Below you'll find an excerpt of a message
our founder, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, sent to our board of directors. We
thought you might enjoy reading it as well.
It was extremely satisfying to watch the
confirmation hearings today and realize what the Treatment Advocacy Center
has accomplished. This would not have occurred without us.
Shortly after the Treatment Advocacy Center was founded we realized that
the main obstacle to our goal of making treatment for individuals with
serious mental illness more available was SAMHSA. The fact that out
federal tax dollars were being used to block attempts to improve care
seemed fundamentally wrong. We therefore undertook what became a 15
year campaign to change SAMHSA.
The
Torrey
Action Fund serves as a Tribute to Dr. Torrey and as a way of sustaining
our work we otherwise could not undertake. Donate today to support our
fight.
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Our initial effort was " Hippie
Healthcare Policy", published in the
Washington Monthly in 2002. It detailed how SAMHSA-funded groups were
blocking attempts to improve treatment laws in California and elsewhere;
how SAMHSA was sponsoring conferences at which speakers called
schizophrenia "a healthy, valid, desirable condition ..not a
disorder"; etc. We continued this campaign intermittently for 10
years with articles and, in 2011 released a YouTube
video in which we awarded SAMHSA the Worst
Government Agency Award. We also made sure that all this information
go to the desks of the key members of Congress.
Finally, in 2012 Rep. Tim Murphy joined the
cause to reform SAMHSA and the rest is history. In the byzantine
political events of the past five years, our advocacy staff have been key
players in the establishment of the new position of Assistant Secretary, in
creating federal AOT grant legislation and much more.
After 15 years, there will now be some oversight of SAMHSA,
the federal agency with a $3.5 billion budget that was supposed to provide
leadership on mental illness issues. Obviously, the person who is appointed
to the position will be key. A
And on that issue there is also good
news. Dr. McCance-Katz was our candidate for the job because she was
the best qualified and most likely to make significant changes.
Her appointment represents a major win for the Treatment
Advocacy Center and for everyone in the US with a serious mental
illness. Our supporters should be justly proud of what has been
accomplished. And, of course, the real work to improve the treatment
system has just begun!
From
all of us at the Treatment Advocacy Center, we thank you for your support
in our fight to eliminate the barriers to effective treatment for people
with severe mental illness.
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