To: President Donald Trump, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
Mental Health Services for America NOW!
As a mental health professional, I have known that this so-called "Mental Health Reform" was an atrocious mistake. I referred to it as "Mental Health Deform," predicting that there would be a terrible fallout from washing our hands of the most mentally unstable members of our society. I have been watching the "other shoe falling" ever since. With every violent school shooting over the last decade and a half, and every episode of school bullying leading to horrors such as middle-schoolers committing suicide, and so many other horror stories found on every local news station across the country... I have felt hopeless to change anything. Well after 20 more innocent children have been gunned down by a mentally unstable individual, I am TOO ANGRY TO STAY SILENT ANY LONGER! And you should be, too. If we do not take a stand for true mental health reform RIGHT NOW, we might as well hold OURSELVES responsible for the next atrocity that will surely plague our nation.
Why is this important?
You don't have to be a Mental Health professional to care about the state of the emotional and psychological well-being of our citizens. If you are one of those who believe it is time to prioritize mental health and you agree with the statement above, please read on and sign this petition!
In the not-too-distant past, affordable behavioral/mental health services were available in most towns and cities in this great country. Services included psychotherapy, family counseling, psychiatry (including medication management) and various other important community programs for people struggling with emotional problems, trauma, and/or mental illness. In the last ten-fifteen years, these programs have been systematically stripped from the federal and state budgets. Not only did this send countless mental health workers all across the country to the unemployment lines, it more importantly left hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people to fall through the cracks of our society.
With the latest horrific school shooting occurring in Newtown, Connecticut, we are clearly sowing the seeds of this outrageous decision to marginalize the most mentally unstable citizens of our country. We can no longer hopelessly sit by while more innocent people's lives and families are destroyed by our government's unwillingness to shoulder the responsibility of the mental health crisis we are clearly experiencing. We must demand REAL REFORM -- and insist on the re-funding of public mental health programs and services. And we must demand it NOW. We can turn this crisis into an opportunity to take real action, TODAY. Thank you.
In the not-too-distant past, affordable behavioral/mental health services were available in most towns and cities in this great country. Services included psychotherapy, family counseling, psychiatry (including medication management) and various other important community programs for people struggling with emotional problems, trauma, and/or mental illness. In the last ten-fifteen years, these programs have been systematically stripped from the federal and state budgets. Not only did this send countless mental health workers all across the country to the unemployment lines, it more importantly left hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people to fall through the cracks of our society.
With the latest horrific school shooting occurring in Newtown, Connecticut, we are clearly sowing the seeds of this outrageous decision to marginalize the most mentally unstable citizens of our country. We can no longer hopelessly sit by while more innocent people's lives and families are destroyed by our government's unwillingness to shoulder the responsibility of the mental health crisis we are clearly experiencing. We must demand REAL REFORM -- and insist on the re-funding of public mental health programs and services. And we must demand it NOW. We can turn this crisis into an opportunity to take real action, TODAY. Thank you.