Take Action!

Advocates are urged to call their Senators, especially if they are members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to urge them to support funding for mental illness research and services for FY 2013. Senators are urged to support:

1. $32 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This amount would allow for a long overdue increase for the budget of the NIMH, above the President's request for a freeze at the current FY 2012 level of $1.479 billion. Holding NIMH at its current level for FY 2013 would severely limit the ability of the agency to fund "new and competing" research grants on schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in FY 2013. In addition, a freeze in FY 2013 would mark the 5th consecutive year that the NIMH budget failed to rise at least to account for "medical research inflation."
2. Continuation of the $40 million increase in funding for the Mental Health Block Grant that Congress approved for FY 2012, the first increases in over decade. Cuts to public mental health budgets at the state level are now approaching $5 billion over the past 4 years. Congress must respond to this crisis that is threatening the already frayed safety net for people living with serious mental illness.
3. Restoration of full SAMHSA funding for the Primary Care-Behavioral Health Integration Grants and Technical Assistance Center funded through SAMHSA. These grants are critical to efforts to improve access to primary medical care for adults living with serious mental illness experiencing co-morbid medical conditions and are now at grave risk of lower life expectancy. The President's budget had proposed eliminating the SAMHSA portion of PBHCI funding and allocating $26 million from the Prevention and Public Health Fund, which itself at risk of deep cuts.

Reports from Capitol Hill indicate that the Senate Appropriations Committee will begin consideration of the 2013 budgets for the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) on June 12, 2012. At stake in this legislation, known as the FY 2013 Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill, are critical investments in mental illness research and programs that support state and local public mental health systems, including the Mental Health Block Grant program.

California Diane Feinstein is on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee.  Phone or email her today and ask for her support.

Be a part of a historic community-driven participatory evaluation! 

You can access the survey by going to this website: www.healthychild.ucla.edu/StatewideSurvey or by filling out a paper version. Contact the UCLA Evaluation Team for the paper option.

Questions? Please contact the following Evaluation Team member:

This Weekend's Mental Health Services ACTION segment on the Free Your Mind Projects Radio Show

Tune in this weekend to Los Angeles-based Free Your Mind Projects radio show for the weekly Mental Health Services ACTION segment.  The ACTION segment highlights Prop 63 and can be heard on the following stations:  KTLK AM 1150 (Los Angeles) Sundays at 7:30 a.m.; KSTE AM 650 (Sacramento) Saturdays at 8 a.m.; KNEW AM 960 (San Francisco) Saturdays at 5 a.m.; KCBQ AM 1170 (San Diego) Sundays at 4 p.m.;  KERN NewsTalk 1180 (Bakersfield) Saturdays at 5 a.m. and KGFM Soft Rock 101.5 (Bakersfield) Sundays at 5 a.m. 

Also, a special half hour edition can be heard on KSTE AM 650 Sacramento, Saturdays at 7:30 a.m.  And beginning June 9, that same half hour show will also be heard in San Francisco on KNEW AM 960 at 5:30 p.m.

The shows are archived on http://freeyourmindprojects.com/index.php/Radio-Shows/ and on www.mhsoac.ca.gov .

This weekend's ACTION segment features Superior Court Judge Stephen Manley who presides over Santa Clara County's Mental Health Court and Dr. Nancy Pena, Mental Health Director for Santa Clara County Health and Hospital System.