Advocating for people with serious mental health illness

Many years have passed since the broad scale deinstitutionalization of long term mental health care, but have these institutions really gone away? Laurie Hallmark, Mental Health Rights Defender, argues that deinstitutionalization simply turned old institutions into new ones — shifting those with serious mental illness from long term hospital care into homelessness, short term hospital commitments, and the criminal justice system. At its core, Laurie suggests, the systems in place to support those with mental illness have failed. Currently, the system takes a one size fits all approach, rather than recognizing the needs of individuals and using "sensible reality solutions'' to meet folks where they are. Laurie has developed highly personalized Psychiatric Advance Directives (PADs) to support those with serious mental illness from a place of understanding, advocacy, and compassion.

With a human-centric approach, Laurie believes that the mental health system can be inverted to develop sustainable solutions that integrate those with serious mental illness into our society. Learn more about her approach by watching her TEDMED 2020 Talk "Advocating for people with serious mental illness".