Mental Health America held the first day of keynote events of its Mental Health America 2024 Conference on Thursday, with more than 900 clinicians, advocates and industry leaders attending in person and thousands of people across the country and the world virtually. Programming began with remarks from MHA President and CEO Schroeder Stribling and Health Resources and Services Administration Administrator Carole Johnson at an opening luncheon.
The afternoon featured breakout sessions on the various conference topics: innovation in mental health; local solutions to equity needs; youth and young adult mental health; policies and promotion; and community responses to disasters and humanitarian crises.
As attendees gathered again on the main stage in the early afternoon, young mental health leaders from Mental Health America joined Stribling and MHA Board President Pierluigi Mancini in an annual conference tradition: the ringing of the Mental health campaign.
During the early days of mental health treatment, asylums often restrained people suffering from mental illness with iron chains and shackles around their ankles and wrists. With better understanding and treatments, this practice stopped, and in the early 1950s, Mental Health America called on asylums across the country to remove their discarded chains and shackles.
In April 1953, at the McShane Bell Foundry in Baltimore, Mental Health America melted down these inhuman restraints and transformed them into a sign of hope: the Mental Health Bell. Today, the Mental Health Bell rings out hope for improved mental health and victory over mental illness.
After the bell rang, Mancini presented Mental Health America’s highest award: the Clifford W. Beers Award. Created in honor of MHA’s founder, the award is presented annually to a consumer of mental health or substance use services who best reflects the example set by Beers in his efforts to improve conditions and attitudes toward people with mental illness. Mancini presented this year’s award to Rene Jonesa dedicated mental health professional, speaker, and survivor advocate who overcame addiction and sex trafficking.
“I fought and fought and fought and I will not stop fighting. I am here today to let you know that Mental Health America, you and I will continue to fight openly and be there for those who cannot fight for themselves,” Jones said in his acceptance speech, invoking one of Beers’ most famous quotes. quote: “I must fight in the open air.”
At the final event of the evening, former Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy and Philomena Kebec sat down with MHA board member Madhuri Jha to talk about mental health advocacy and Kennedy’s latest book, ” Profiles in Mental Health Courage,” featuring Kebec’s story.
Kebec, who belongs to the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, spoke about how healing for her is not just about medication or therapy, but about making structural changes, including uplifting people in her community who are suffering injustice .
“That’s as much a part of my therapy as when I go and talk to my therapist every week,” she said.
Kennedy echoed the need for systemic change and addressing the social determinants of mental health, saying, “We don’t address the core factors to help people have stability…housing, employment—these are things that aren’t there.” covered by insurance.”
He also called on political leaders and future presidential administrations to focus on mental health as a bipartisan issue.
“We have a much bigger fight, it is not a republican or democratic fight, it is about putting this issue at the forefront,” he said.
The 2024 American Mental Health Conference continues through Saturday, September 21.
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