![]() Since 1996, hundreds of Carter Fellows, myself included, have been trained in how to dismantle stigma through storytelling and report on mental health accurately and with compassion.People use many different terms when it comes to accessing healthcare, including health disparity, health equality, and health equity. To help counter those negative impacts, the Carter Center established the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. For so long, harmful depictions of people with mental illness in movies and news coverage perpetuated stereotypes and fueled stigma and discrimination. helped them pass their first mental health law."Ĭarter also understood the power that the media has in shaping public perception. " gone from one psychiatrist to over 350 clinicians. ![]() "We've been in Liberia for 15 years," says Byrd. In the early 2000s, she focused on Liberia, where the mental health workforce was essentially non-existent. There's also the new national three-digit mental health crisis line, 988, she says, which "parallels emergency medical services, and can put any American and every American in touch with a trained crisis counselor when they're experiencing any kind of mental health crisis or emergency."Īnd Carter's mental health work was not limited to the U.S. Brendel with the American Psychiatric Association says Carter's efforts also helped spur federal funding for research on mental illnesses. There was just really not a whole lot of other people coming in with any kind of celebrity at all wanting to associate themselves with this cause."įast forward to 2023, and there are numerous examples of how Carter's persistent work, over so many years, has born fruit.Įarlier this year, the Biden administration strengthened a rule to make insurance cover mental health care.ĭr. "I don't think we passed it because there was any great outcry to finally end the separate and unequal treatment of those who have a brain illness versus another illness of their body. Kennedy says the Parity Act passed in part because it got tacked onto the $700 billion bailout for banks aimed at stabilizing the economy but also because it got a big boost from Carter, who came to Capitol Hill to testify in support of the measure. The measure, co-sponsored by Kennedy, would require insurance companies to cover mental illness on par with other medical issues. It would be another three decades before community mental health treatment would be federally funded again, through the Affordable Care Act, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010.īefore the ACA, Rosalynn Carter lobbied for another federal bill: the 2008 Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act. What sets her apart is that she recognized the stigma, and really more so the discriminatory behaviors that come from that stigma." "She was persistent and worked very hard to get people to talk about it. "She said, 'I was first lady and you would not believe how difficult it was to get people to come and talk about these services, these needs and this issue,'" Byrd says. She titled her 2010 book on the issue Within Our Reach, because she believed the problems could be solved.Įve Byrd, director of the Carter Center's mental health program, says Carter in recent years would tell stories about her struggles getting policymakers to engage on the issue. Though the nation's mental health system still falls short in myriad ways, Carter didn't give up on the idea that it could be better. Carter's lead, from the time that she began advocating for the availability of mental health, we would be in a very different place than we are, really playing catch up in making mental health services available to every American," Brendel says.ĭespite the setback, Rosalynn Carter persisted. The measure passed but would later be stripped of funding after President Ronald Reagan took office in the '80s. It called for major investments in community-based mental health treatment. ![]() The landmark Mental Health Systems Act of 1980, which Carter championed while President Jimmy Carter was in office, was a game changer, Brendel says. Rebecca Brendel, a past-president of the American Psychiatric Association. "She imagined that we would have mental health treatment, just the same way that people were going to the doctors for their physical health," says Dr.
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