By Schizophrenia & Psychosis Action Alliance
May 2024
At our inaugural SPRING Summit and Advocacy Workshop in Washington last week, the voices of our community were powerful. We shared our experiences to pinpoint the biggest barriers to schizophrenia treatment and recovery, such as our siloed healthcare system and the culture of discrimination that pervades our society.
“We need to change the way we think about how we treat individuals.”
“We need to give people words to describe what they’re experiencing, so it can be more easily digested by everyone.”
“People are stuck in their siloes. We need to change that.”
This amazing group of people – those living with this severe brain disease, family members, clinicians, sheriffs, judges – then worked to identify solutions, launching a Roadmap to Recovery that will guide our collaborative efforts moving forward. The energy of both days was a testament to the power of connection.
The only way to fix our siloed care system is to bring together people from all parts of that system, listen to each other and work together to make it better. That’s what our SPRING events were all about.
The significant unmet needs of our community were voiced by all of these stakeholders. An enormous number of people cannot access proper treatment. Caregiver health and wellbeing is a significant concern. Black and Latino voices are underrepresented. Supportive community housing is desperately lacking. Clinician training lags years behind best-practice treatment. The list goes on. We won’t solve these challenges right away, but we will get there, together. There was widespread interest in working with S&PAA – and now our new advocacy affiliate, the Schizophrenia Policy Action Network – to lead the charge.
We are invigorated by the cooperative spirit that surrounded us all last week, and we’ll share more details from the meetings soon. Until then, we offer our heartfelt thanks to those who joined us and to those who supported us virtually with your well wishes. You are the reason we fight to shatter the barriers to treatment, survival and recovery for the amazing human beings we love who live with schizophrenia and deserve the chance to thrive.