You're invited to attend our next Community Chat after our Summer break. We're opening up this Chat to all ISPS-US supporters, so please share with those who may be interested.
Theme: The Potential of PAIMI Advisory Councils: 800 Pound Sleeping Gorillas with Jim Gottstein and Kristine "KK" Kapp
Date: Saturday, September 21st at 4pm Eastern
The federal Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness (PAIMI) Act funds an army of lawyers through the Protection and Advocacy (P&A) system that are supposed to "ensure the rights of individuals with mental illness are protected." In order to do this, every P&A must have an Advisory Council to provide independent advice and recommendations, and with which it must jointly develop annual policies and priorities. "Jointly" means the Council has veto power (as does the P&A). Or put another way, the annual policies and priorities must be negotiated between the P&A and the Council and not just imposed by the P&A, which is now prevalent. However, most P&As do not acknowledge the Councils' powerful role, stating the Councils are only "advisory," and ignoring that they must jointly determine the policies and priorities. As a result, the P&A System has utterly failed to fulfill its statutory purpose to ensure the rights of people diagnosed with mental illness are protected. Largely because people’s rights to less restrictive and less intrusive alternatives are pervasively violated through forced drugging, the recovery rate for people diagnosed with serious mental illness is 5%, rather than the 80% we know is possible, and life spans are reduced by 20-25 years on average. This is laid out in the Report on Improving Mental Health Outcomes, which could be the guidebook for the PAIMI Councils in jointly developing their P&As' policies and priorities. The PAIMI Councils must include
- attorneys,
- mental health professionals,
- individuals from the public who are knowledgeable about mental illness,
- a provider of mental health services,
- individuals who have received or are receiving mental health services, and family members of such individuals.
ISPS-US thus has many people who qualify for membership on their PAIMI Advisory Council. Jim Gottstein of the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights), whose mission is to mount a strategic litigation campaign against forced psychiatric drugging and electroshock, has teamed up with Kristina (KK) Kapp, the current chair of the Ohio PAIMI Council, to empower the PAIMI Advisory Councils to exercise their statutory authority through (1) recruiting good people to become Council members, (2) educating them about their role and authority, and (3) PsychRights providing legal backup for the PAIMI Advisory Councils, its members, and potential members.If you are interested in the PAIMI Act and its Advisory Councils, and especially if you are potentially interested in becoming a PAIMI Advisory Council member, please join Jim on Saturday September 21st, 2024 at 4pm Eastern.
Register using this link: https://ispsus.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/ispsus/event.jsp?event=7417&
