This is a request for your organization to endorse the Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act (CMWRA) developed by Representative Paul Tonko (D-NY). This is the legislation the ITRC has been working on for two years (and was previously called the Resilience for All Act)
Rep. Tonko plans to introduce the CMWRA in Congress in late October. Before he does we would like to gather a wide and diverse set of endorsements from national, regional, state, tribal, and local organizations.
To read the CWMRA and make an organizational endorsement open the document attached her and hit the links found there.
This urgently needed new policy will, for the first time, authorize the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to fund and support community-based initiatives nationwide that use a public health approach to enhance their entire population's capacity for mental wellness and resilience to prevent and heal climate change-generated and other mental health and psychosocial problems.
Mental health problems are at epidemic levels today. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic mental health problems were rising nationwide. According to Mental Health America, last year almost 20 percent of adults, or nearly 50 million Americans, experienced a diagnosed mental illness and 5 percent had a severe mental illness. About 8 percent had a substance use disorder, 10 percent experienced an alcohol disorder, and over 11 million adults reported serious thoughts of suicide. In addition, a 2022 CDC survey found that overall, 37 percent of students at public and private high schools reported poor mental health, including stress, anxiety, and depression. A poll by the American Psychiatric Association last year found that 53 percent of adults with children under 18 said they are concerned about the mental state of their children.
The historic storms, floods, wildfires, heatwaves, droughts, and other disasters generated by the accelerating climate emergency are aggravating these problems and creating new ones. In 2021 more that 40 percent of Americans lived in a county that was impacted by a major natural disaster. Disasters can traumatize 20-40 percent of those who are directly impacted, 10-20 percent of disaster response workers, and 5-10 percent of the general population who are not directly affected but know someone who is or view the events from afar. Consequently, the number of people who experience a mental health problem as a result of a disaster often outweigh those with physical injuries by 40 to 1.
Community traumas are also increasing. This means an overwhelmingly stressful event or series of events, such as wildfires, floods, or mass shootings that traumatize most people residing in a specific neighborhood, town, or city.
Our mental health, human services, and disaster mental health systems cannot assist all of the people who experience mental health problems today, and this gap will only grow over time. In addition, many people will not engage in treatment due to high costs, fears of being stigmatized, or injustices embedded in the mental health system. We must act now to expand our approach to preventing and healing mental health problems.
To reduce today's epidemic of mental health problems, and prevent future ones, the Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act will:
- Authorize CDC to establish a grant program to expand existing community-based initiatives and form new ones that use a public health approach to enhance population-level capacity to prevent and heal mental health problems generated by persistent disasters and toxic stresses.
- Appropriate $30,000,000 for fiscal years 2023 through 2027 to fund small planning grants of up to $15,000 to help community initiatives get organized, and larger program grants of up to $4 million to support and help expand existing community wellness and resilience initiatives.
- The community-based initiatives funded by this program will involve a wide and diverse network of grass-roots and neighborhood leaders, and non-profit, private, and public organizations.
- The community initiatives will develop their own age and culturally appropriate strategies to engage all adults and youth in enhancing and sustaining mental wellness and resilience, with high-risk individuals and those with symptoms of pathology given special attention as part of the larger community effort.
- The strategies will use evidence-based, evidence-informed, promising, and/or indigenous practices to engage residents in strengthening existing protective factors, and forming additional ones, to help all adults and youth push back against traumatic stressors, maintain mental wellness, and rapidly recover when they are impacted by toxic stresses or disasters.
- Individualized mental health treatment will support the community-based wellness and resilience building activities and assist people who still cannot function, or are at risk of harming themselves or others.
This bill provides a much needed expansion of our nation's approach to preventing and healing mental health problems by supporting community-based initiatives. For these reasons we ask your organization to endorse the Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act. Closing Date is Oct. 5
To read the CWMRA and make an organizational endorsement open the document attached her and hit the links found there.
Sincerely,
Bob Doppelt, Coordinator, ITRC
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