AOT (Kendra's Law in NY, Laura's Law in CA, etc.) has provided consumers with a less restrictive alternative to inpatient commitment and incarceration. Research shows 81% of consumers in AOT say it helped them get well and stay well. Independent research shows it helps the mentally ill by reducing homelessness (74%); suicide attempts (55%); and substance abuse (48%); Keeps the public safer by reducing physical harm to others (47%) and property destruction (43%) and saves money by reducing hospitalization (77%); arrests (83%); and incarceration (87%). It also has a positive effect on the treatment system, saves money, and delivers care to the most severely ill whom voluntary treatments and peer support have not worked for.

The Recovery Learning Communities (RLCs) are a new approach to Peer Support that focus on values and belief in trauma-informed care, genuine human relationships, mutuality, respect, resiliency, the probability of recovery and the power of community itself. RLCs facilitate community connections between people who identify as having lived experience with psychiatric diagnoses, extreme states and/or trauma, as well as with the broader community. They operate on the fundamental belief that we are all human beings, each one of us sometimes needing support and all of us benefiting from choices, understanding, compassion and the opportunity to learn from one another. Individuals who seek support through an RLC do not simply get assigned to a 'peer worker,' but rather become a part of a regional community where they can meet others with similar experiences, seek advocacy, get and give support, access wellness opportunities like yoga and acupuncture, take classes and so much more! For more information, visit www.westernmassrlc.org, www.centralmassrlc.org, www.metrosubrlc.org or www.metrobostonrlc.org.

Polls like this - while well intended - essentially put up for sale words like 'recovery' and 'wellness' and do the same for how we regard what qualifies as progress. Unfortunately, a lot of the 'buyers' with the most purchasing power do NOT hold the values of the recovery movement or the broader community in mind. Something is getting lost here in this process. These polls are leading to popularity contests, political battles and what amounts to a reality-TV-style voting free-for-all. This is not what we want or need, and it doesn't lead us toward dialogue or any sort of common good. Please stop these polls and let's find a real way to have some of these conversations. Vote for this if you want to see a real, human process be prioritized for real, human issues. Now, THAT would be progress.

Incorporating people with lived experience of recovery in the mental health system means allowing many who are also diagnosed with various DSM 'disorders' to rethink their practice and perhaps even come out of hiding. "Peers" know the value of human rights, too and the illness producing effect of lack thereof.
I am hoping SAMSHA also can face the contributions of some types of psychotropic medications to metabolic syndrome and early death. I am hoping SAMSHA does the brave thing of supporting those psychiatrist who try to address this issue through addressing polypharmacology and medication reduction. As one who has been on long term psychotropics (fourteen years or so) and gained over 100 lbs. I can attest to the fact that this needs to be addressed. I have been off them for about six years now with no ill effect. We need to study why it is that some, like me, can go on with their lives without them and apply those lessons.

Efforts to support families of children and youth with mental health disorders have been instrumental in assisting families and youth to find their voice and more effectively engage in the system of care transformation efforts across the country. Families and youth no longer feel isolated. They can engage with other families going through the same thing and together find hope and recovery. The Federation of Families has done an amazing job in uniting and educating and inspiring family members and youth across the country.

SAMHSA/CMHS funded Statewide Family Networks help to identify and connect families and family organizations across a state. Through these linkages family and youth voice is strengthened to affect positive change.

As a Certified Peer Support Specialist in North Carolina, I would say that my positive, sustaining, and rewarding work in the state-funded mental health system encompasses many of the incredibly positive changes that have taken place in formal structures of care. I facilitate recovery education classes, such as the Evidence-based Practices of Mary Ellen Copeland's WRAP and Wellness Management Recovery. The students that participate at the Recovery Education Center often enter our doors in a state of crisis. They are some of the bravest and most resilient people I have ever known. Having access to Peer Support and to positive curricula that were created by or with the help of people with lived experience creates a learning environment characterized by strengths, humanity, and validation of the worth of one's experience. Countless expensive and traumatic hospitalizations have been avoided, lives have been saved. As someone with 23 years of experience as a "consumer" in "the mental health system" I have had the gift of an opportunity to shift my thinking about myself. I am not a Patient anymore. I am a Peer. I think my own recovery began with that shift in perspective.

There is, of course, so much work to be done still. However, there is HOPE.

In states where Assisted Outpatient Treatment is on the books, but is not implemented enough, it is
important to know that Court ordered Outpatient treatment is the other option to keep people safe by
giving probate judges the authority to order treatment. Any person or family member can petition
the court via a downloadable affidavit as to the condition of a loved one to effect this treatment by
whatever measure necessary. Ohio is now working on this important change and along with that
prove the enormous amounts of money saved by jail diversion and saving lives. Perhaps state
NAMI affiliates can help accomplish this through soliciting endorsements from their constituencies.