Activities
The Treatment Advocacy Center engages in a wide range of activities and projects aimed at increasing treatment for people with severe mental illness. Areas of focus have or continue to include:
♦ Development of a Model Law for Assisted Treatment, released in 2000, the Model Law suggests a legal framework for authorizing court-ordered treatment of individuals with untreated severe mental illness who meet strict legal criteria. Used by lawmakers intent on reforming mental illness treatment laws and standards in their states, the Model Law incorporates multiple overlapping protections to safeguard those under court-ordered treatment and to ensure that only those for whom it is appropriate are placed or remain in assisted treatment.
♦ Advocacy for civil commitment laws and policies that reduce the consequences of non-treatment for mental illness, which include arrest, incarceration, homelessness, hospitalization violence toward self and others
♦ Data-based research and study into public policy and other issues related specific to severe mental illness. An example is More Mentally Ill Persons Are in Jails and Prisons Than Hospitals: A Survey of the States published in 2010.
♦ Education of policymakers and judges regarding the nature of severe mental illnesses, advanced treatments available for those illnesses, and the necessity of court-ordered treatment for those who meet strict legal criteria
♦ Assistance to grassroots advocates working in the states to promote legal reform
♦ Support for the development of innovative treatments for and research into the causes of severe and persistent psychiatric illnesses
The Treatment Advocacy Center has been credited with the passage Kendra's Law in New York, Laura's Law in California, and similar assisted outpatient treatment laws in Florida and other states. Since the organization’s foundation, 22 states have reformed their civil commitment laws or standards at least in part as a result of the organization’s advocacy.
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“As life developed, I faced each problem as it came along. As my activities and work broadened and reached out, I never tried to shirk. I tried never to evade an issue. When I found I had something to do—I just did it.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
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—Marta Zahaykevich, Ucranian born-U.S. psychitrist. “Critical Perspectives on Adult Women’s Development,” (1980)