A quarterly legislative update from the Treatment Advocacy Center
Winter 2021
Dear Treatment Advocacy Center partners,
My name is Clara Keane, and I joined the Treatment Advocacy Center team in August as legislative advocacy manager. I will be communicating with you regularly about legislative updates regarding severe mental illness (SMI) and opportunities to take action. Today, I am very excited to share with you this inaugural issue of SMI Advocate, Treatment Advocacy Center's new quarterly newsletter!
SMI Advocate is a publication for you, our local partners. Read it to stay informed about relevant bills and other advocacy initiatives you can engage with to advance our goal of making timely and effective treatment for those with SMI a reality.
Looking back over the last year, it's remarkable how much we've accomplished. This issue overviews 2021 legislative advancements and offers detailed updates on state-level advocacy as well as federal and national issues.
Our loved ones deserve better than the broken mental health system they are trapped in. It's absolutely critical for lawmakers at all levels of government to hear your stories so they can get a glimpse of what it's like to seek treatment in a system that neglects the sickest among us and criminalizes the symptoms of mental illness.
I look forward to partnering with you in our shared advocacy to demand better outcomes for families affected by severe mental illness!
Treatment Advocacy Center
200 North Glebe Road, Suite 801
Arlington, VA 22203
(703) 294-6001
TreatmentAdvocacyCenter.org
To read the full article, click here: Action Center (votervoice.net) 12/20/2021 SMI Advocate
Read Goodreads reviews of In the Matter of Edwin Potter at www.davidegeiger.com
IMOEP YouTube and other videos at www.davidegeiger.com/videos
IMOEP is available at Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, and www.davidegeiger.com
“In the spring of 2017, I took 52 In the Matter of Edwin Potter books and delivered them by hand to colleges and universities large and small in the northern NJ and New York City area. Imagine if they took my ideas on mental illness and criminal justice reform to heart. Maybe that is how this all started… I wrote my first article on the subject in May 1998 for IMprint and a more developed approach in October 1999 which I expanded upon and included in IMOEP as chapter 104 ‘Reducing Recidivism.’”
--David Geiger, author of IMOEP
David Geiger is a licensed and retired professional electrical engineer who spent 7 years in psychiatric hospitals and over 40 years since 1979 in the courts as a result of his schizophrenia. He worked for Consolidated Edison in NYC for 20 years and won recognition and an award for his work there. He writes about his illness in the book as well as those who have the illness and are caught up in the criminal legal system.