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. 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.  Treatment Advocacy Center | www.TreatmentAdvocacyCenter.org