Psychiatry and the Community
The Psychiatry and the Community Committee focuses on the intersection of community and psychiatry.
ABOUT OUR COMMITTEE
A Catalyst for Change: The Committee of Psychiatry and the Community has been at the forefront of addressing some of the most complex and pressing challenges within the field of community mental health. Considering the complexity of the issues, and the committee’s goal of making a real impact on the lives of individuals and communities, we typically focus on one or two areas over a period of several years.
CURRENT WORK
Current Work (2023- ): Building Healthy Communities
The committee is currently focused on this issue in two major areas:
The interface of severe behavioral health challenges and homelessness
The impact of gun violence on communities
RECENT PUBLICATIONS
A recent issue of the Psychiatric Clinics of North America was guest edited by two members of our committee, Margie Balfour and Matt Goldman. The theme of “Crisis Services” builds on our committee’s Roadmap to the Ideal Crisis System (see below). We are especially pleased that it includes two articles first-authored by our current and most recent GAP fellows, Alex McClanahan and Sam Jackson:
Alexander McClanahan, Curtis N. Adams, Ann L. Hackman, Robert O. Cotes, and Kenneth Minkoff: Postcrisis Follow-Up and Linkage to Community Services. Psychiatric Clinics of North America 2024, Volume 47, Issue 3, pp 531-546
Samuel W. Jackson, Enrico G. Castillo, Keris Jän Myrick, and Matthew L. Goldman: Policy, Design, and Critical Reflections on Behavioral Health Crisis Services for People Experiencing Homelessness. Psychiatric Clinics of North America 2024, Volume 47, Issue 3, pp 577-593
PAST WORK
From 2016 - 2022, our focus was on behavioral health crisis services. During that time, the committee researched evidence-based and emerging best practices in BH crisis services, and developed a comprehensive report intended as an implementation guide for communities. That report, entitled “Roadmap for the Ideal Crisis System” was published in partnership with the National Council for Mental Wellbeing in 2021. The committee followed that up with implementation tools, including a report card (for communities to set and monitor goals and progress), learning communities, and a website on which the resources in the initial report could be easily accessed, along with ongoing developments in this rapidly evolving aspect of community mental health.
From 2006 – 2015; the focus of the committee was on the interface of mental illness and the criminal justice/carceral systems. We began by gathering stories of persons with mental illness and their families who had been incarcerated – hearing directly about their experience. The committee had the good fortune to collaborate with “Dear Abby” – using that far reaching column to elicit these stories. These stories provided the context and rationale for recommended interventions both at the individual/clinics level, as well as the need for systemic changes. This work was published as a book in 2016 entitled: People in with Mental Illness in the Criminal Justice System: Answering A Cry for Help.
Prior to that, the committee had used a similar methodology, also collaborating with “Dear Abby” on two projects:
The first, from 1982-1986, involved collecting stories (letters) from family members of individuals with serious mental illness, describing their frustrations (and successes) in obtaining help for their loved ones. This resulted in the publication of one of GAP’s all-time best sellers: “A Family Affair” in 1986.
We followed that with the publication of “A Resident’s Guide to Treating People with Chronic Mental Illness” in 1993, and then went back to Dear Abby to collect personal stories from individuals with schizophrenia, talking about their experiences in seeking help, especially from psychiatrists: what seemed to help, what hindered, etc. Lessons learned from that were published as “Now That We Are Listening” in 2000.
Chair: Michael Flaum
Fellow: Alex McClanahan
Current Committee Members: Curtis Adams, Matthew Goldman, Margie Balfour, Ken Minkoff, Jacqueline Feldman, Anne Hackman, Steve Leifman, Stephanie LeMelle, Paula Panzer, Joe Parks, Sarah Baker, Sam Jackson, Robert Cotes, Dwight Kemp, and Caitlin Stork
Consultant: Keris Myrick
Member Emerita: Leona Bachrach