Inseparable

Established in 2020, we are a growing coalition of people from across the country who share a common goal of fundamentally improving mental health policy to heal ourselves, our loved ones, and our communities. We are coming together as a united hopeful force to press our leaders to recognize, with tangible policy solutions, that the health of our minds cannot be separate from the health of our bodies.

There are a lot of problems that need to be addressed, but for us, three urgent priorities rise to the top:

Eliminate the gap between the number of people who need help and the people who get help. There’s a huge treatment gap between those who need help and those who receive it. Less than half of the people in America who need treatment for mental health issues receive the care they need — that’s more than 26 million people left untreated. For those with health insurance, navigating the mental healthcare system can be confusing and services are often not included in coverage. For those without insurance coverage, access to mental health services can be financially out of reach, creating an additional barrier to seeking treatment.

For people of color, LGBTQ people, veterans, postpartum women, and Native Americans, the need for care can be even greater, so we’re working to make access to care more equitable as well.

(1) Closing the treatment gap and increasing access to care includes addressing affordability, expanding insurance coverage, integrating mental health into primary care, and building a much bigger, culturally and linguistically competent workforce. We’ll pursue actions at the state and federal level, and engage with the Biden Administration to take executive actions that reform mental health policies and expand access.

(2) Ensure every school has services to provide for the health and well-being of all students. Half of all mental illness presents before age 14. In 2018, suicide was the second leading cause of death for ages 12-18 and college-age youth. As the pandemic rages on, learning patterns are being disrupted for children of all ages, increasing social isolation and putting children at an increased risk with less access to support. In 2020, there was a 24 percent increase in emergency room visits for mental health reasons for kids aged 5 through 11 and more than a 30 percent increase for kids between ages 12 and 17. We need urgent investments in prevention and early intervention to give every child in America a chance for a hopeful, healthy future.

Comprehensive school mental health systems have been proven to create positive, nourishing school climates by ensuring students have access to support systems, and vital, age-appropriate mental health and well-being knowledge and skills from K-12. Investments in prevention and early intervention with children and adolescents will strengthen resiliency and create significant savings down the line.

We’ve launched a bold, multi-year effort to bring a comprehensive approach to mental health to every school in America called the Hopeful Futures Campaign. We will work closely with federal and state government stakeholders to implement comprehensive school mental health systems by including more school counselors, mental health professionals, social and emotional learning curriculum, mental health literacy programs for students and teachers, regular mental health screenings, and more.

Stop criminalizing mental illness and expand crisis response. Mental health and addiction are some of the only medical conditions that we routinely criminalize in the United States. A conservative estimate says 900,000 people with mental illness end up in our jails every year. To put that into perspective, the L.A. County Jail is the largest mental health provider in the country. That’s unacceptable.

We’re prioritizing treatment over punishment for people with mental illnesses and calling on lawmakers to develop a federal strategy for the decriminalization of mental health and reform of crisis response systems. And because calling 911 can too often turn a crisis into tragedy like in the Daniel Prude case, we will work with mental health and criminal justice reform advocates to build and expand a robust crisis response system that prioritizes health and well-being.

In all three areas, the need is urgent, people are ready for action, and strategic leadership and courageous decision making will save lives in the future. Here’s how we will work together to advance policies and drive initiatives that will ultimately improve and save lives.