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national-shattering-silence-coalition

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We are voices for the 14.2 million adults and 8 million children living with and dying too young from serious mental illnesses (really serious brain disorders).

Funding Links: https://github.com/sponsors/National-Shattering-Silence-Coalition

GitHub Sponsors Profile

Since inception in October 2017, the National Shattering Silence Coalition has been speaking out and inspiring change on behalf of the over 14.2 million adults and 8 million children with serious brain disorders, and their loved ones.
We are the voices for those living with and dying far too young from serious brain disorders (SBD).
Our nonpartisan alliance of family members, individuals suffering from serious brain disorders, professionals in the trenches, and caring people, united to ensure brain illness, health, and criminal justice systems count those with SBD and their families in all federal, state, and local policy reforms.
What started with three voices on October 5, 2017, has now grown exponentially by over 700% to 344 members strong. Our internal base of support has almost doubled each year, growing by an annual average of 178%.
Over the past five years, we’ve collectively shattered the silence about our humanitarian crisis, helping to ensure treatment before tragedy, and catalyzing a movement to build a more compassionate and just world through our collaborative advocacy.
Our discriminatory laws and practices have left those seriously ill homeless, incarcerated or dead far too soon.
For far too long, people with serious brain disorders have been marginalized,
misunderstood, discriminated against, and treated with scorn and indifference. They have suffered injustices, such as being:
● incarcerated as a direct result of their untreated serious brain disorders,
● left to decompensate on the streets of America,
● denied medically necessary, lifesaving treatment
● and lost their lives even as their families begged for treatment.
Unless you have personal or professional experience with serious brain disorders, you may not realize the inequities these individuals face. The mental healthcare system and the laws affecting treatment are more often than not cruel and unjust.
Society expects the person with a serious brain disorder to ask for help, without understanding that the person’s illness impairs the very organ that enables them to make decisions. Fifty percent of people with serious brain disorders lack insight into their illness, known as anosognosia. These individuals will never ask for help, because they don’t know and cannot accept that they are ill. If a person with dementia were to wander the streets confused and vulnerable, we would demand that they receive proper care. Yet we allow individuals with serious brain disorders to deteriorate until the point of danger, or even death, without intervening.
Families who desperately try to get their loved ones into treatment are shut out by privacy laws. Instead of offering compassionate, common-sense intervention, the person is effectively denied their right to medically necessary treatment. Their right to treatment is lost in the name of protecting their civil rights.
Our nation’s discriminatory laws and practices deny medically necessary treatment primarily by limiting the availability of hospital beds. The decision to admit a patient for medical care is made based on laws and the availability of hospital beds rather than medical necessity. As a result, people with serious brain disorders end up homeless, incarcerated or dead far too soon.
Together, we are on a mission to raise awareness and create solutions for the humanitarian crisis faced by people with severe brain disorders, commonly referred to as severe mental illnesses, and those that love them.
We are harnessing the collective power of our voices to create a national movement too powerful to ignore. We are demanding equity for people with serious brain disorders. #ShatteringSilence
One person or group alone can’t change the world, but together our voices can be a powerful catalyst for change. The National Shattering Silence Coalition provides a platform for everyone who has been failed by the discriminatory, broken mental health system to turn their immense outrage and grief into action.
Our growing grassroots movement is speaking out and demanding an end to the suffering, abandonment and criminalization of those with serious brain disorders. We empower family members, those working in the trenches and people with lived experience to turn pain into purpose. And, we advocate for family members to ensure loved ones are not released from jails to streets but to a hospital bed instead.
Our members strive to change widespread misperceptions about SBD and advocate for equitable laws and policies to ensure policy makers understand problems and propose humane solutions. By doing so, people with serious brain disorders can receive more compassionate, comprehensive care to live their best lives. #justiceforSBD #righttotreatment #HIPAAhandcuffs #lifelongcare4SBD #parityforsbd #fundingequity #abedinstead #treatmentbeforetragedy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEsNFTdIrCs&t=2s