Mental Health Paradigms and Advocacy

Pete Earley 5.27.2016

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

In a profound session at the City Club of Cleveland, Pete Earley, a renowned author and mental health advocate, highlighted critical issues concerning mental health treatment and justice system intersections. Earley shared his personal story about his son Kevin, who suffers from bipolar disorder, and stressed the inadequacies of mental health services and policies impacting those affected. His talk urged communities to invest in comprehensive mental health care systems rather than depend on the criminal justice system. He concludes with a call for compassionate and inclusive societal roles termed as 'stone catchers' to aid and protect those with mental health challenges.

Highlights

Earley emphasizes the alarming number of mentally ill individuals within U.S. jails. 🚔🏢
His personal journey with his son showcases systemic failures in mental health care. 🌪️👨‍👦
Mental health care must include comprehensive services like housing, healthcare, and crisis management. 🏠💊
Advancements in crisis intervention by law enforcement can drastically prevent harmful outcomes. 🚨👌
Empathy and community support can transform lives, as demonstrated by his son Kevin’s recovery story. 💪✨

Key Takeaways

Pete Earley's story reveals a critical gap between mental health care and the justice system. 🏥 ➡️ ⚖️
Cook County Jail is alarmingly the largest mental health 'facility' in the U.S. 📉
A compassionate shift in policing can significantly change mental health intervention outcomes. 🚓❤️
Changing mental health outcomes requires comprehensive community involvement and support. 🏘️🤝
Stone catchers are ordinary people who step in to protect and help others, offering hope and support. 🪨✋

Overview

Pete Earley presented a powerful talk at the City Club of Cleveland exposing the stark realities and challenges within the mental health and justice systems in America. He shared his deeply personal and emotional narrative involving his son’s mental health crisis to emphasize systemic inadequacies that many families face.

Focusing on solutions, Earley highlighted the successful initiatives like CIT (Crisis Intervention Teams) and the need for a community-centered approach to mental health care. By sharing his own family’s experiences, he underscored the significance of societal support and practical interventions tailored to individuals’ needs.

Adding an inspiring note, Earley described 'stone catchers'—individuals motivated to protect and aid those struggling with mental health issues. This call to action urges attendees to become allies and advocates within their communities, aiming to instill hope and facilitate recovery for people affected by mental illness.

Chapters

00:00 - 00:30: Introduction The chapter introduces the support and sponsorship for the City Club forums, highlighting the contributions of organizations such as PNC, the Raskin family fund, Cleveland State University, Robert Conrad, and the Pain Fund, which enable the production and distribution of these forums on ideastream.
00:30 - 02:30: Speaker Introduction and Mental Health Statistics The chapter titled 'Speaker Introduction and Mental Health Statistics' begins with a welcome to the City Club of Cleveland where Dan Waltrip, the chief executive and a proud member, acknowledges the significance of the occasion as it coincides with the end of Mental Health Awareness Month. He introduces the speaker, Pete Early, who is an author and mental health advocate. The chapter highlights a startling statistic regarding mental health facilities in the nation, emphasizing that the largest is not a hospital or recovery center, but rather the Cook County Jail in Illinois, where approximately one in three inmates have mental health issues.
02:30 - 06:30: Pete Earley's Personal Story The chapter 'Pete Earley's Personal Story' focuses on the prevalence of mental illness among inmates in the United States. It highlights Rikers Island and Los Angeles County Jail as having significant numbers of inmates with mental health issues, similar to Cook County. These examples are indicative of a nationwide issue, as estimated by the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), which states that at least 400,000 inmates in the U.S. suffer from mental health problems. Furthermore, NAMI estimates that 25 to 40 percent of all Americans with mental illness will be jailed or incarcerated.
06:30 - 12:00: Current State of Mental Health Care in Prisons Many Americans with mental illness, approximately two in five, encounter the criminal justice system during their lifetime. This often involves prolonged stays in jails, sometimes lasting weeks, months, or even years, as they await transfer to state mental hospitals. These facilities are tasked with assessing their mental competency for trial. Tragically, this waiting process can lead to dire outcomes, as illustrated by the case of J Michael Mitchell, a 24-year-old with schizophrenia who suffered as a result.
12:00 - 18:00: Need for Community Mental Health Services The chapter discusses the critical necessity for community mental health services, illustrated by the tragic story of a person who died in a Virginia prison for a petty theft charge. It highlights the systemic failures where mental health issues intersect with the justice system. The speaker, Peter Lee, shares his personal narrative to underscore these challenges, recounting his son's struggle with bipolar disorder and subsequent entanglement with the criminal justice system. This personal journey is also detailed in Lee's book, 'Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness,' emphasizing the urgent need for comprehensive mental health support within communities to prevent such tragedies.
18:00 - 23:00: Success Story of Pete's Son and Importance of Good Care The chapter discusses the career and achievements of Mr. Earley, who is a renowned journalist recognized with numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize and eleven awards from major mental health organizations in the United States. Mr. Earley's journey began as a reporter in Kansas and later as the sole correspondent for the Tulsa Tribune in Washington DC, where he covered the Oklahoma congressional delegation and sometimes the White House and US Supreme Court.
23:00 - 29:00: Q&A - Medication and Homelessness The chapter titled "Q&A - Medication and Homelessness" introduces Mr. Lee, an accomplished author and mental health advocate. He is known for writing 12 non-fiction books, including New York Times bestsellers, and six novels. In this chapter, his extensive work in mental health advocacy is highlighted. Mr. Lee frequently travels across the country and internationally to support the National Alliance on Mental Illness. He has made significant contributions to discussions around mental health by testifying before the US Congress five times, aiming to advocate for reforms in the mental health care system. His role became particularly prominent following the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 when he was appointed by the Chief to address mental health issues stemming from such tragedies.
29:00 - 36:00: Cultural and Educational Aspects of Mental Health The chapter begins with a discussion on the revision of Virginia's mental health laws, highlighting the role of the state Supreme Court. It transitions into Pete Early's speech at the City Club of Cleveland, expressing his gratitude and excitement for the opportunity to speak, acknowledging the club's history and the honor of being invited.
36:00 - 48:00: Role of Community Support and Legislation The chapter begins with the speaker recounting a personal story involving a frantic car ride with his son, who asks him a deeply concerning question about suicide. The story unfolds, revealing that the speaker's college-age son, referred to as Michael in the narrative, had been diagnosed a year earlier with mental health issues. The chapter sets the stage for exploring the role of community support and legislation in dealing with mental health crises, highlighting the personal impact on families and the urgent need for systemic support.
48:00 - 58:00: Closing Remarks and Final Questions The chapter discusses a deeply personal experience dealing with a family member's bipolar disorder. The narrator recounts an instance where their son, who was supposed to be on medication for his condition, had stopped taking it and was found wandering around Manhattan for five days without sleep. On picking him up, he displayed erratic behavior, alternating between laughter and tears, and resisted taking his medication, claiming it was poison. The situation escalated when they reached the emergency room, where the staff seemed dismissive, exemplified by a nurse rolling her eyes at the son's behavior.
58:00 - 59:00: Conclusion The chapter titled 'Conclusion' depicts an emotional and tense scenario involving the author, their son, and a doctor's intervention. The narrator describes a situation where they were isolated for four hours, during which the son insists he's not ill and wants to leave. Despite the mother's attempts to seek medical attention, the doctor apologetically confesses his inability to assist without even examining the son, implying a lack of support or misunderstanding. This exchange leaves a lingering sense of frustration and helplessness, capturing the complexity and emotional depth of the situation.

Pete Earley 5.27.2016 Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 production and distribution of City Club forums on ideastream are made possible by the generous support of PNC and the Raskin family fund with additional funding from Cleveland State University Robert Conrad and the pain fund
00:30 - 01:00 good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland I'm Dan Waltrip I'm the chief executive here I'm also a proud member of our city club we're here at the end of Mental Health Awareness Month so it's appropriate and also a pleasure to introduce our speaker today author and mental health advocate Pete early currently in our nation the largest mental health facility isn't a state-of-the-art hospital or recovery center it's the Cook County Jail in Illinois where an estimated one in three
01:00 - 01:30 inmates battle some form of mental illness Rikers Island in New York and Los Angeles County Jail follow close behind Cook County in the number of inmates with mental illness those correctional institutions are sadly not unique the National Alliance on Mental Illness or Nami as it's known estimates at least four hundred thousand inmates currently behind bars in the United States suffer from some form of mental illness they also estimate the 25 to 40 percent of all Americans with mental illness will be jailed or incarcerated
01:30 - 02:00 at some point in their lives that's up to two in five Americans with mental illness who will cross paths with a criminal justice system so what does that look like crossing paths with the criminal justice system inmates often spend weeks months and in rare cases even years in jails waiting to be transferred to state mental hospitals where experts will determine whether they are well enough to stand trial sometimes this process ends tragically as in the case of J Michael Mitchell a 24 year old suffering from schizophrenia
02:00 - 02:30 who died in a Virginia prison recently in our speaker today recently wrote about that Mitchell had been charged with stealing just five dollars worth of snacks from the store from a store peterlee has a personal connection to this intersection mental health and our nation's justice systems mr. Lee's son Michael was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and during a manic episode committed a crime the ensuing experience is chronicled in mr. Lee's book crazy a father searched through America's mental health madness which was a 2007 finalist
02:30 - 03:00 for the Pulitzer Prize the book is also a 11 awards from every major mental health organization in the United States including including excuse me including the American Psychiatric Association mr. Earley spent much of his career in journalism beginning as a reporter in kansas before heading to washington DC in 1978 as the loan and probably lonely correspondent for the tulsa tribune covering oklahoma oklahoma congressional delegation and on occasion the White House in the US Supreme Court he later served as a reporter for The
03:00 - 03:30 Washington Post he is also the author of 12 non-fiction books including for New York Times bestsellers along with six novels today mr. Lee spends much of his time doing mental health advocacy work traveling the country and around the world in support of the National Alliance on Mental Illness he's testified or appeared before Congress before the US Congress five times to tell his story and advocate for changes in our mental health care system after the Virginia Tech shooting tragedy in 2007 mr. Lee was appointed by the Chief
03:30 - 04:00 Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court to a panel that rewrote the state's mental health law's ladies and gentlemen members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland please join me in welcoming Pete early I am absolutely thrilled to be here thank you so much the history of your club this is such such an honor for me and I appreciate this opportunity thank
04:00 - 04:30 you Dan for that very generous introduction I've been asked today to tell you about my story and my story begins with a frantic car ride and my son Kali Jade's son saying these words dad how would you feel if someone you love killed himself my college-age son who's Michael in the book and real name is Kevin Michael was as middle name and I were racing from New York City where he was a student to fairfax county virginia outside Washington DC when he asked me that question I my son had been diagnosed a year earlier with mental
04:30 - 05:00 illness bipolar disorder and a doctor had put him on medication but my son had stopped taking its bills and when I picked him up that morning in Manhattan he had been wandering around the city for five days he hadn't slept he was convinced that God had him on a special mission and during that Franny car ride he would laugh one minute and then he begins sobbing the next and I pleaded with him take his medication he screamed pills are poison leave me alone and we got to the emergency room at Fairfax Hospital and the nurse rolled her eyes while Michael kevin was talking
05:00 - 05:30 gibberish about how God had him on this special mission and then we were taken into a room all alone away from everyone else and we were there for four hours and finally my son said I'm not sick there's nothing wrong with me I don't need to be in here i'm going to leave and I said hang on hang on and I literally went out and I grabbed a doctor and I will never forget how that doctor came in the room he came in with his hands up as if you surrender he said I'm sorry mr. Lee I really can't help you with your son I said you haven't even examined him and he explained that
05:30 - 06:00 it didn't matter Virginia law at that time was very specific unless a person posed an immediate imminent danger they could not be required to take medication they could not be required to undergo treatment and the nurse had told him my son thought all pills were poisoned but he looked at me he said you seem like a nice guy I'll tell you what you bring your son back after he tries to kill you or kill someone else well I took my son home and during the next 48 hours I saw him sink deeper and deeper into a mental biss at one point he had in foil wrapped around his head because
06:00 - 06:30 he didn't want the CIA reading his thoughts through our television he slipped out of the house he slipped out early one morning he slipped out he broke into a stranger's house he broke in to take a bubble bath luckily no one was there it took five police officers to get him out and when they did they took him over to a mental health center and they called me and I went racing over there and a policeman was standing outside and he said whoa whoa whoa whoa mr. early before you go in there let me give you a little father to father advice even though your son has told us he has bipolar disorder even though he's
06:30 - 07:00 told us he's off his medication even though we picked him up in a house taking a bubble bath unless you go in and you tell that psychiatrist your son has threatened to kill you he will not meet the imminent danger criteria and we will take him to jail and you don't want that and I looked at him and I said my son hasn't threatened to kill me and he shrugged and he walked away so I'm here today to tell you and I do it with no pride because it hurt my relationship with my son I went in and I lied I said my son had threatened to kill me and
07:00 - 07:30 that was good enough to get him taken to a hospital where 48 24 hours later he voluntarily committed himself but our problems were far from over 24 hours after my son was admitted in that hospital I got a call from his doctor he said I'm sorry mr. Lee your insurance companies not going to pay for this they say he doesn't need to be here we're going to release him I said hold on hold on I called that insurance company and I got absolutely nowhere until I happened to mention that I used to work at the Washington Post and I happened to
07:30 - 08:00 mention that I was friends with Mike Wallace at 60 minutes and they should expect to call you imagine getting that call hi this is Mike Wallace with 60 minutes why as Pete early sun being released all of a sudden my son was allowed to stay for a record-breaking 14 days in between the short time that that Franny car ride and my son's hospitalization I had lied to get him into treatment I violated my ethics as a
08:00 - 08:30 journalist because you're not supposed to bully people and just when I thought things couldn't get any worse they did I got a call from the Fairfax County Police my son was being charged with two felonies breaking and entering and destruction of property I was so frustrated and I said to my wife Patti one night I want to help our son but I don't know how to do it and she looked at me and she said why don't you do what you do best Pete early a father can't figure out much but Pete early a reporter can why don't you investigate this and see what's really happening well for once I
08:30 - 09:00 actually took my wife's advice now that's my only joke so if you don't get it I'm sorry but I did a little digging and I discovered what happened to my son is not some aberration as dan has just told you is we're sitting here in this beautiful facility there are 400,000 people with schizophrenia and major depression and bipolar disorder in our jails and prisons more than 2 million are arrested every year more than 1 million are on probation and as Dan said
09:00 - 09:30 the largest public mental facility United States today is not a treatment center its the rivalry between the Cook County Jail records island in the LA County Jail and if you think Ohio is missed out on this then you need to think again despite all you've done and I want to tell you right now Ohio has been a national leader when it comes to mental health reform you should pat yourself on the back but despite everything you have done there are
09:30 - 10:00 nearly five times as many individuals with mental illness and your jails and prisons then there are in your treatment facility five times one in twelve prisoners in your state have a serious and persistent mental illness schizophrenia bipolar disorder according to a recent story in The Columbus Dispatch and a study found that if you live in Ohio and your son like mine has a breakdown like my son did the chances are for 21 they'll end up in jail or prison rather than getting any kind of help for 21 well statistics like that
10:00 - 10:30 they gave me an idea I thought I'd go and find a jail somewhere and follow the people through the jail out in the streets and then go back and talk to all the experts and the correctional officers and the parents and try to make sense of it well i started in los angeles makes sense at that time as the largest public medals i lasted two days before they kicked me out saying i was violating HIPAA I tried Cook County Knicks this is before sheriff dart and they said no I tried Rikers Island Knicks and they said no I tried Baltimore next they
10:30 - 11:00 said no I tried washington d.c my hometown and they said hell no and i ended up going to Miami because of a really forward-thinking judge down there judge steve life man who said i want you to see i want you to see what's happening in our jail I want to take you there I want to take you on to what's called the Forgotten floor it's the suicide wing there were 19 cells it was a u-shaped cellblock the officers walked up and down the center the cells all had
11:00 - 11:30 plexi glass fronts and when i walked in i saw men completely naked in those cells cells built for two people five and six people crowded in there and because of a design flaw the cold air was blocked by the Plexiglas the cells were bone-chilling cold but there were no blankets and because the cell the jail was old its water broke down people on medication were thirsty but there was no way for him to drink so they actually drank out of the toilet and when you
11:30 - 12:00 listen to you heard the normal jail sounds but we listen closer you could hear the asylum sounds a person screaming at some unseen tormentor and then I heard a thud thud thud and then faster that's a thud then louder thud thud thud it was one of the inmates running forward smashing his forehead in the front of cell I ain't crazy he said well then quit acting like you are the unconcerned officer called back now you're going well we don't live in Miami and and those people got arrested there's a reason they got arrested dan
12:00 - 12:30 mentioned jamail my Mitchell all right let's talk about him for a second arrested last August in my home state virginia and Portsmouth Portsmouth Virginia he was so psychotic 24 year old African Americans so psychotic that the judge said you need to go the State Hospital and you get to be made competent to stand trial well what happened well the court either forgot to send the papers and when they finally got around to sending him they weren't discovered until six days after Mitchell
12:30 - 13:00 was dead Jame Mitchell had been waiting in the Virginia jail for a hundred and one days to be sent to that hospital he had lost 50 pounds he died from a heart attack brought on by starvation and according to news reports Dale officials had refused to feed him because he was not obeying their rules he was dragged sprayed with mace beaten by jail officials verbally abused left at Mach stood on and treated like a circus
13:00 - 13:30 animal according to news reports and what was his crime dan already told you I'll go into detail he was psychotic he wandered in a store he was hungry he picked up five dollars worth of snack foods a mountain Dew Snickers bar and zebra case zebra cake and he walked out without paying it and for that he died now he was typical we're not talking about Hannibal Lecter serial killers here we're talking about people who have serious mental illnesses now there are many reasons we don't have time to go
13:30 - 14:00 into them all the reasons why our jails and prisons are new asylums but the biggest reason is that we still don't have adequately finance community mental health services in our nation especially crisis care beds we close down state hospitals without building a community safety net and the in the aftermath of the 2008 recessions states cut more than four billion in public mental health funding from a system that already was
14:00 - 14:30 cut to the bone the National Alliance on Mental Illness which I belong to reports that Ohio's public mental health system is currently only serving twenty two percent of adults who have been diagnosed and live with serious mental illness only one in five are getting help did you know across America today in half of our counties in our country half of our counties there is no psychiatrist there is no psychologist there is no therapist there is no social
14:30 - 15:00 worker there is no treatment in half of our kunti's across America well because our mental health system is failing us we're now turning to the criminal justice system to save us and this is where your state has been a champion and a leader we have instituted crisis intervention and trained team training for police officers so that we don't have Rambo coming through the door and that is fantastic because of my friend justice
15:00 - 15:30 Eve Stratton Ohio has been a leader in mental health courts yes and veterans courts because my friend Fred fries they've been a leader in pure programs and listening to persons with lived experience because of my friend mark munits you have the sequential intercept model which is brilliant it designs where in the criminal justice system you can find someone and get them into treatment and that right now judge
15:30 - 16:00 rejected Stratton is leading the stepping up campaign which is a national effort to reduce people in jails and prisons who have mental illnesses but now I'm going to challenge you because Ohio needs to take the next step forward you need to go beyond trying to fix the criminal justice system you have to realize that a diversion system is great but only if you have somewhere to divert
16:00 - 16:30 people to the criminal justice system did not create this crisis and we can't expect it to solve this crisis use some common sense if I had a broken arm I wouldn't call up your police chief and say hey can you tomorrow and fix my arm and if I needed heart surgery we can call up your sheriff and say hey can you come put a new heart in and if I had nasty nasty hemorrhoids I wouldn't call up your judge and say hey judge come on over i need you to take a look so why
16:30 - 17:00 are we expecting the police in the sheriff and the judges to fix what is a community problem the best way to stop the criminalization a person with mental illness is to interact and get them help before they ever end up in the criminal justice system and to do that we need to wake up and you need to understand that you can't fix you can't reform the mental health system in our country unless you want to talk about housing how can you get better if you're living
17:00 - 17:30 under a bridge and you can't fix it unless you want to talk about drug and alcohol and co-occurring problems which happened to persons with mental illness and you can't fix it unless you want to talk about access to good medical care that includes peer support and treatment for trauma and you can't fix it unless you want to talk about jobs which empower people and give them hope and clubhouses where they can socialize and be connected to the community and you can't talk about unless you want to talk about transportation you can't talk about unless you want to talk about veterans and you can't talk about it unless you
17:30 - 18:00 want to do the number one thing that you have to have in your community and that's called giving people hope telling them they can recover and they can get better writer hal lindsey said a best man can live about 40 days without food about three days without water about eight minutes without air but only one second without hope you know people say to me all the time Oh people with mental illness always just so sad I feel so
18:00 - 18:30 sorry for them and i always reply with one word bull and i cut that short out of respect to this audience and this hallowed Hall people get better mental illness has one of the highest recovery rates of any illness out I could tell you about Rick down in Cincinnati homeless for years brought in housing first an act Team assertive community treatment team that actually went to him and provided services and stead
18:30 - 19:00 expecting him to get on a bus and try to find a doctor here that he's doing great but today I'm going to tell you about my son for two years he's on probation he did fantastic as soon as that probation ended he stopped taking his medication now I could tell he was slipping so I called the Fairfax County mobile response team I said please come please come my son's office med he needs help whoa whoa whoa does he dangerous now he's not dangerous but let me tell you what happened you can't judge him on
19:00 - 19:30 what happened last night you call him if he's dangerous well the night I didn't have to lie the night my son was violent I called that same dispatcher i said my son's violent will you please come and he said wait a minute is he dangerous or is he violent and I said he's violent he said oh we don't comment their violent you call the police why called the police and they came and they shot my son twice with a Taser and they hogtied him and took him away do you know what it's like preparing to see your son tasered and hogtied and taken away now
19:30 - 20:00 I'm telling you that story for a reason if I couldn't get help after writing a book about it my fancy connections with Mike Wallace my education what chance does someone who's homeless who's psychotic who doesn't have any connections what chance they have well my son got better two more years go by and then he goes off his meds again it's Thanksgiving and he can tell I know so
20:00 - 20:30 he runs out and he jumps in his car he takes off and I call him and I say what are you doing what are you doing please please come home he says I'm going to heaven he hangs up the phone for hours later he ran out of gas I guess if you live in North Carolina you're going to be honored because that was where he stopped that must be heaven and he called me i said no problem just go get some gas just go get some gas and we'll take care of this and he goes no no no you don't understand dad if I step out of this car i'm going to die the voices are telling me if I step out this car
20:30 - 21:00 I'm gonna die now we all know that's foolish but how do you know you're listening to me and if voices in your head we're right now saying you die if you stepped out of the city club dan you'd have to open up a big wing of beds so I did what no father should do I range for my son to get gasoline he drove psychotic up 95 went off the road twice luckily didn't get stopped came to my house I said I want to help you I want to be your partner what do you want I want to go into safe house just let me go I don't want to take my meds okay so we go in the safe house middle night he gets up takes off all his clothes
21:00 - 21:30 because this everybody knows when you take off your clothes your invisible anyway I'm walking outside but listen listen to what happened to my son this time this time a CIT trained officer picked him up and that officer treat him with respect and when my son he said let's go to a hospital and my son said don't handcuff me I'm not a criminal don't handcuff me he said I won't i'll use my discretion put him in the back seat him said what kind of music you like to listen to my son said rap he turned on rap and drove him to the hospital my said said thank you that's like a taxi but you don't have to pay
21:30 - 22:00 goddamn there and when that doctor said well we naked and walk down stairs no dangerous the officer actually look tame I'm not recommending this he looked at him and said really doctor hi doctor so i might driving more to your front yard and let him out all said my son was admitted then he got a case manager and she said to him why don't you take your medication do you know my son 7 psychiatrist only to a bother to learn anything about him except his name and
22:00 - 22:30 his symptoms and that's because they're only going to be paid for 15 minutes and all I have to do is stick pills in somebody's mouth and shove him out the door but treating the mind also requires treating the heart and she get him a doctor actually talked to him and said let's work and find a medication that doesn't make you gain 60 pounds and doesn't make you sluggish and doesn't interfere with your life and then she said you shouldn't live with your father I didn't quite know how to take that but she said you're too old to live with your father she got a min housing first she got him with two guys with
22:30 - 23:00 schizophrenia and he had an apartment and she said I expect you to clean it I expect you to pay rent on and then she said what do you want to do with your life well what can I do I I have a mental illness knock it off control it don't let it control you I'd like to help people I got the perfect job for you it's called peer to peer a person with lived experience helping people lived experience she got him certified today my son is a peer to peer specialist he works on a jail diversion team in Fairfax County he pays taxes he
23:00 - 23:30 lives independently so don't tell me recovery is not possible I have seen it with my own eyes let me let me brag a little bout my son a guy over 300 pounds schizophrenia in the basement of his parents house hasn't been out for months my son gets to know him talked to him gets him out they go to McDonald's not the best choice but they go there that's not much that's not
23:30 - 24:00 much unless that is your son what saved my son being diverted from the criminal justice system into the mental health system that actually addressed his needs and gave him hope what do people with mental illness want why do we ask such a stupid question they want the same thing all of us what they want to say place to live a purpose in life and people to love them which brings me to you what can you do never forget that one person can change the world one person can
24:00 - 24:30 change your community I have seen it happen Margaret Mead said it best when she said never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world indeed it's the only thing that ever has you've been very polite very nice listening to me I'm going to close by telling you a story I grew up in Oklahoma my dad was a minister that meant that I was dragged to church every wednesday night every saturday every sunday and i got good about sitting there looking like and never hearing a word except when he told one story and it's about a woman having
24:30 - 25:00 sex there in the Bible you just got no where to look a woman is caught in adultery notice in the Bible it's always the women who were caught in adultery she dragged into the middle of sit city people gather round they're going to stone her for this awful thing she's done and then we read that the teacher says let ye who's never sinned throw that first stone and they put down the rocks because they know all know that they have sinned that they have committed crimes whatever you know violate whatever today we live in a world where people don't put down those
25:00 - 25:30 rocks they're anxious to lock up people are different get them off the street just get them out of sight people with drug addictions and mental oils just get rid of them my friend Brian Steven who's one of the main characters in one of my first books called circumstantial evidence fabulous attorney just wrote a book called just mercy which I would recommend he likes to use the term stone catcher people who step between the angry mob throwing stones and protect those who can't protect themselves until they're strong
25:30 - 26:00 enough to join you and protect others and as the stone catchers in our society who give me hope my son has a mental illness to me this wears his face and I be forever grateful to people such as Justice Stratton and Fred fries and Mark mutants and others who are stone catchers people like you who can look beyond the madness in his eyes and see a person of worth with parents and family who love him so thank you for coming today thank you for listening to me thank you for being a stone catch or get
26:00 - 26:30 involved and you will change someone's life thank strong words Bryan Stevenson spoke here did it yes he did he did he spoke here it was he was really good he was really good it was March was it eighteen nineteen twenty fifteen the day after our president spoke today at the City
26:30 - 27:00 Club of Cleveland were enjoying a Friday forum featuring Pete early stone catcher and mental health advocate and author of crazy father searched through America's mental health madness don't nobody nobody know okay we're about to head into the QA and we welcome questions from all of you everyone including guests City Club members gasps students those of you joining us by our radio broadcast our webcast or our new live simulcast of the Cuyahoga County Public Library parma snow branch if you'd like to tweet a question you can tweet it at the city club and our staff will try to
27:00 - 27:30 work it into the program please make sure your questions are brief and to the point and actually questions and please don't try to wrestle the microphone away from our staff they know just exactly where to hold it holding our microphones Abele today are our Director of Programming Stephanie Jansky and our content associate Teddy Eisenberg may we have our first question please I should say I know your reputation and you asked tough questions and I'm from Washington so I'm equally tough in giving you a lot of words and not saying anything I'm
27:30 - 28:00 fresh from a visit to San Francisco where the amiable weather and the interesting City makes for a pervasive reality of seeing homeless people so it's hard not to think about this issue I risk a technical question you describe your son not being willing to take his meds and the desperate effort to get him to do so but then you also talked about uncertainty about what is the right set
28:00 - 28:30 a set of medication from a distance it's hard not to long for certainty in what should be done for someone but if you're saying that there's even uncertainty about what drugs someone should take you begin to throw up your hand again and say well then who knows what to do for many people do we have to have a great effort put first into exam I mean what a particular individual needs before you know what to do you do
28:30 - 29:00 have to know one size fits all there are some people who do well without medication there are vast majority you don't do well without medication and in that you need to find the right meditation and you know these things take time they can take years to find the right combination and get the right diagnosis and the reason is obvious because we don't have a blood test I can't you know take a DNA sample and say
29:00 - 29:30 oh I have you know bipolar disorder we're not at that stage yet so it's based on symptoms of people telling you what is and so it's a very indefinite system so you had to stick with it I want to I told you I warned you you'd mentioned San Francisco and i want to mention something there because i had a heart-warming something really meant a lot to me i was on san francisco there's a place called the hotel Empress there for homeless and I was there and the
29:30 - 30:00 director said you should go to talk to Mary over here she's from one of the wealthiest families in this community and she goes out every day a pan him and then she gives the money does glass core why so I went out and I talked to her and she said I can handle because it's the only way people will talk to me imagine being so isolated it the only way you can get someone to talk to you panhandling I don't know how nice you guys are to pay had a large but not exactly so I'm going to interject that
30:00 - 30:30 then we go back I have spent a lot of time thinking about how do you approach someone with mills and on one end there's the theory if you just give them all these services they'll eventually come around now the other end there is no people are so sick they lose insight and you need to step in and force Medicaid if possible and these are the constant arguments my son had a family
30:30 - 31:00 he had social connectivity he had a house he had a doctor and yet I Institute I put him in hospitals for x so and every time he got out he went off his mess and no judge is going to give you an order to say you're on meds the rest of your life so what is the answer well the answer is trying to figure out how to engage him how to get him to want to change and that's the most difficult
31:00 - 31:30 challenge of all and people will tell you they'll say oh let them hit rock bottom what if that means death so it's that fine balance a parent walks in with trying to partner trying to listen but also being wary and ready to step in if necessary and it's a delicate dance the very difficult in sonic ster microphone oh that's all right I kept all those people on radio landform asking me a question yes yes all right I was just
31:30 - 32:00 wondering in the course of your research did you ever look into the immigrant community because imagine the problems there are a great deal more severe because there he might be afraid that if they come forward they might be picked up and deported absolutely you've stated well one of the problems that when I was doing my 10 months in the Miami jail I had there was a tragic case where a person had been picked up who was an immigrant and the federal government in the state and the
32:00 - 32:30 county were all battling about who was going to pay for her and so she had been in the jail almost three years and because she wasn't a person who would qualified for any kind of medical services and no one wanted to pay for him they literally were just letting her in that sailor Cell all alone feeding her but giving her absolutely no help and it was one of the most tragic things I've ever seen but not only immigrant we need to be culturally aware a lot of our programs are aimed at you know white
32:30 - 33:00 middle-class folks and that is not that's good but you also have to reach out and realize there's differences in the minority communities and cultural differences in the Asian community there's a tremendous amount of shame of having a mental illness and so you need to recognize those and try to address those problems and that's a step for mental health folks to really realize and jump into good afternoon I'm a retired schoolteacher and schools
33:00 - 33:30 especially public schools are so underfunded and the first group of people who are laid off our social workers I know from Cleveland they have no social workers and so many other districts in the country so my question is when you talk about mental illness and not catching it early what would be your thoughts on maybe including that in your conversation or researching it because I'm sure there are so many young
33:30 - 34:00 people who are left unattended because of the layoffs of social workers early intervention is key the sooner and here's the other thing I was just talking about engagement my son didn't resist the first time and I start my story with a panic car ride but I said a year earlier he'd been dying knows he had stopped eating he didn't fight me about going to a psychiatrist he wanted to know what's going on but what did that psychiatrists say when he did that diagnosis psychiatry I'll get
34:00 - 34:30 back to your question I promise the psychiatrist came out he said look I'm not going to sugarcoat this your son's got bipolar disorder he'd been lucky you'd be luckier if he was on drugs and I'm sitting there going like what he says and I'm going to tell you the facts because this is a journey here it's it's a lifetime disease chances are you'll never get better every time you have a breakdown you're going to kill more parts of your brain you're going to be a medication all your life and you probably have to go and disability pay
34:30 - 35:00 for your drugs probably never work good luck it Mary I mean it was like whoa now my wife recently was diagnosed with kidney cancer okay when we walked out of there we came out like man we're going to beat the odds we I mean this is highly treatable we're gonna we're going to be that different well that's what my son did a peg my son walked out from the doctor he looked me goes that guy's crazy okay so how do we engage this person we don't tell them this you give
35:00 - 35:30 them no hope you say hey welcome you know we were going to help you early intervention I was just yesterday at the summit Senate summit about the bills up in Congress and a psychiatrist there was talking about how infants people 34 years old because those aren't infants are seeing signs mills teachers recognize that first and a bill by Senator Murphy and Senator Casti would fund more money to early intervention
35:30 - 36:00 schools my wife's of teachers I mean you see it and that's just part of it the thing we have to realize in this country is the Perryman group out of Texas did a study for every dollar you send spend on mental health treatment you save seven dollars in the end how do you save it by to putting people in jails and prisons where they stay three times longer cost seven times more and get turned out and then end up a week later back in the jail in prison so we need the problem with that is getting politicians to buy
36:00 - 36:30 into it and talking about cost voyance and people have trouble with that because their big it selected for two years or four years or six years and they're sitting there going like ok this program over 10 years will save me Ellis I'm not going to be around in 10 years especially if I have to spend money now and raise taxes i'm going to get thrown out immediately so we have to rethink that and that's what stepping up is all about as just as stratton can tell you
36:30 - 37:00 it's about saving money by getting people out of the system bear county what closed down a thousand bed jail Miami's closing down jails I mean that's the key one of the keys I just wanted to know what advice do you have for parents that are dealing with a lot of the issues now that you had with your son as he was growing up thank you very much and I write about this on my blog shameless plug you can visit my blog at
37:00 - 37:30 wwe.com because I did everything wrong and the first thing yet to realize is that this is not going to go away it's it's not like I'm not trying to be the doctor and say what was me but it's serious and it's not like you take aspirin and wake up in the morning it's gone the best thing to do is try to partner with your child the next thing to do is educate yourself really really well you need to know do you have CIT officers in your town you need to know
37:30 - 38:00 do you have mental health courts you need to know what rights you have in regards to getting information about that person it's best if you have what's called an advance directive but make sure you get the right kind of Vance directive is that like my son says I trust my dad if I psychotic he has a right to say what's necessary to be done it's just like the same as if someone has dementia you need to know if you have assisted outpatient treatment that is may require if you have a history of
38:00 - 38:30 going off your meds and a history of violence that a judge can say hey you got to stay on this until you get better you need to know if you have clubhouses you need to be invest of all here you go you need to join nami and i'll tell you why because nami has family to family I'm a lifetime member and trust me when I worked at the why should post a enjoying anything because we were objecting i joined nami the first thing when i got out because i needed that support they have family the family which will help you they'll come to you
38:30 - 39:00 and say okay look your son's doing this guess what so did mary and bill and here's how we handled it and so those are those are some of my sister but most of all you had to have hope when my son was tasered I followed him to the jail he was laying there he was tasered he was hogtied they were laughing at him and I thought had been better if he'd never been born now imagine that and now look at him seven years fantastic doing
39:00 - 39:30 great and if he were here you wouldn't even know he had a mental halls so we're poor judges so you get a hang in there I have a question about psychiatric beds and jails seems too many years ago experts agree we had too many psychiatric beds and so a closed closed closed but now it seems to me we don't have enough psychiatric bed so people are going to jail because there are no beds and what are the experts say now since they were doing everything wrong the one had the mentally ill patient
39:30 - 40:00 needs to be in a mental hospital we don't have a bed for him we put him in jail he gets corrupted by his environment it comes out of criminal if it wasn't to begin with seems to me were screwing up both into the scale you've said it perfectly look originally let's go back and do a little quick history lesson in colonial days he had depend on your family you're locked up in jail as sheriff took he can line and said start walking don't come back 1843 Dorothea Dix was teaching a Bible class in Boston
40:00 - 40:30 jail and she went through a part of the jail that had no heat and the people are literally freezing and she went to jail and said you can't treat people this way he goes oh no you don't understand those people are lunatics they they don't feel the cold they're not like you and me well she spent the next two decades preaching that we needed treatment and she personally persuaded 33 states to open up hospitals which is what you're talking about we opened up these state hospitals and and all sudden they were filled with thousands as that well we all know what happened they turned into giant warehouses where people often were
40:30 - 41:00 used and neglected in Oklahoma my home state 1963 they had a big expose and they were worse worse than concentration camps well Kennedy in 63 signed the community mental health act discovery of a new drug called Thorazine seem to make it possible to move people out of these institutions back in the community well what happened Kennedy got assassinated vietnam war escalated Congress got in snarled and Watergate Thorazine turned out not to be wonderful and communities turned out not in wanting these people
41:00 - 41:30 and so they never got funded the three billion he asked for never got spent the two thousand centers never were opened and then if you check the history books you'll find out that it really wasn't compassion and concern that led to closing those institutions it was money what happened with state legislators were being driven into a corner they were saying you got to fix these up there were lawsuits there was all class action suits because the mental health movement had carried over from the civil rights movement they're saying what are we going to do in the legislators going home like God we're gonna have to raise
41:30 - 42:00 taxes we can't we can't do that and then Uncle Sam came in and said we'll take care of them don't worry we'll take care of but only if they're not in that institution and we're going to set up laws that you can't build a more than 16 bed facilities we want him out well Uncle Sam did as lousy a job as the county's did in fact and I'm not you're very very nonpartisan here I'm just going to tell you the facts we nee T we sent Ronald Reagan to Washington and we said we're tired Uncle Sam picking our pocket cut the government and he began
42:00 - 42:30 cutting all the programs we just said we were going to spend to help these folks 32 million 32 million i think it is no 32 billion and housing was reduced down to six billion because we told him to i'm not blaming the reagan he just did it all right then in 2008 as i said states started cutting again so we're in a we're in an i really appreciate your question because we have never adequately funded any of these things and right now it's gotten worse we have
42:30 - 43:00 psychiatric boarding what's that I was just in California you have somebody you go to emergency room you take your child in you can wait a minimum of 18 hours sometimes up to three days trying to get a hospital bed because there are no crisis care beds of a why aren't there where there's a couple reasons one is HMOs initially they were going to save us all 2005 I think three for some were for profit psychiatry beds don't make money surgical beds do and so
43:00 - 43:30 they began in 2005 in Northern Virginia they closed down half those beds and you're going to see it happening all over in hospitals too they are there they got to make money so they're constantly bouncing ok how many surgery grew beds do we have and how many psychiatric beds which are going to cost us money you know everybody knows about Virginia state senator Craig deeds right and how he took his son in and there were no beds there were no beds and his son went home and his son attacked him
43:30 - 44:00 and then killed himself that shows the problem but let me go beyond that do you know that that should not have a surprised anybody who was paying attention in Virginia because two years earlier our state inspector general had said that we were turning hospitals were turning two hundred people a month away from their facilities who met the dangerous criteria because there were no beds they called it's treating now
44:00 - 44:30 here's the other part of that the day that Craig deeds took his son there there were a hundred and fifty people in the state hospitals who had reached their maximum potential they were ready for discharge but there was no place to send them in the community there was no housing and so they had bottleneck the system and that's what you have to see in what stepping up as part of and what you need to see here in Ohio is just as Stratton can tell you it's not just oh
44:30 - 45:00 let's fix CIT or let's make a mental health court you have to look at the whole spectrum and that includes housing and all those other things so I talked long enough I think you forgot your question but thank you mr. Lee thank you very much for your compliments about the state of Ohio and Cuyahoga County in particular we worked hard in this community to be a leader in mental health services my question to
45:00 - 45:30 you is well recently in our county we have established a faith-based committee good for you where we're emphasizing the importance of spirituality in the recovery process we're excited about it we know that it's going to make the difference in the lives of our consumers I would like to hear your opinion about faith and spirituality in the recovery process and I could not in my statement without seeing because of the leadership
45:30 - 46:00 of our CEO mr. bill denihan this is why we're doing so well in this county good let me try two points here first is when somebody has a mental breakdown one of the first persons they call is their family doctor the numbers to person that gets called is their minister and ministers are even poorer equipped than family doctors are when it comes to
46:00 - 46:30 mental health most family doctors don't know anything about mental health and ministers also have religion tied into it and depending on their faith and denomination you know that all plays a role it and they're very poorly handled so again we're talking about engagement how do you get people I am thrilled I wish more faith-based groups would get involved because the audience and more importantly they could really help fight stigma if churches every sunday during
46:30 - 47:00 mental health month got up there and said you know look I I can do this right here I can tell you that in this audience right now there are there are people have a much worse story to tell than I ever did and there are people right in this audience who have a brother a sister or even them have a mental health diagnosis so you know in a church its same way if one in five now you ask me about faith I think that depends on the individual we know that Alcoholics
47:00 - 47:30 Anonymous we know all of these have a higher power and they they dilute it so they don't say it has to be Jesus or that'd be Buddha or whatever you know it's the idea that you have to think beyond yourself you had to realize that you are helpless I see it with my son a different way he had to accept that he was ill and that was the only time then we could move forward because acceptance then leads to actually wanting to do
47:30 - 48:00 something to fix it as long as you're saying I'm not mentally ill I'm not one of those people it's very hard to get somebody engaged so I think you know i'm religious I grew up in a religious family so obviously i have my own spiritual i think it's helpful but i also have i have family members who have alcohol problems and they're totally turned off by religion and so i think it's a you know i mean you had to address the person where they are i'll
48:00 - 48:30 try to make shorter answers get more questions hi I work in one of our region's stateside psychiatric hospitals and we actually have your book on the shelves of our hospital so in our patient library so I'm putting on my stone cat your hat and good what what some of our patients want to know and you touched on it briefly in a previous question is that bottleneck experienced people who feel they've reached their potential people who feel like they're
48:30 - 49:00 ready for the next step possibly because of their charges or having like a ngri status they feel stuck right and they don't know where to go next so they want to know I'm asking on their behalf what advice do you have for them to get to the next step more specifically aside from Nami are there any other organizations that you're aware of that are really working to help people sort of navigate this process look up the corporation for supportive housing I happen to be in the board justice
49:00 - 49:30 stratton used to be on the board and they have a lot of re-entry programs there that are designed specifically like that to help people with housing you know one of the problems you run into if you're the criminal justice system is nobody ever wants to let out because they're afraid and that's why they spend what three to seven times longer in a facility and no judge wants to take the risk of putting his name on an early discharge or discharge because he's afraid something might happen so you had to go beyond that and the way you go beyond that is by setting up a reentry
49:30 - 50:00 system where people just aren't thrown out the door where they have a case manager they have a case plan they have people checking on them and they help them make that transition and that's where you have to work with law enforcement and also your community to set up housing not in the slums not where people are using drugs and and right back into environment that's going to be hard for them to overcome but in a place that's going to help uplift them connections to club houses but you have to have if you then have that plan if
50:00 - 50:30 you can go and say hey look we want to release Pete and he's going to go in this housing he's going to be seen by this person he's on his meds he's done this if that's what the answer is then you're going to you know be able to do that but that's tough because it all goes back to money and getting that kind of support look for a really progressive judge look at a corporation of supportive housing they have a reentry program guide there that might be useful and they're big in Ohio aren't they aren't they just read yeah corporations
50:30 - 51:00 for Tia the way right sorry mr. Lee thanks again that was a that was very powerful I appreciate you sharing that with us thank you I currently serve as the medical director for our county jail and we've had and we're continuing to build more successes with this idea of the re-entry programs and it's absolutely vital but my background for 25 years was emergency medicine in fact years ago I worked in fairfax a difference department there crazy busy
51:00 - 51:30 in across the country emergency departments have become everybody's safety net night and everybody gets sent there and you can see how wrong this works for these these kind of patients fortunately in this city we actually have an emergency department focused on just behavioral health emergencies and st. Vincent's charity they do a wonderful job my question is have have any of the rules or laws or approaches in emergency departments and Virginia changed since what you dealt with with your son or do you are you still going to face that same kind of
51:30 - 52:00 reproach when you go in there with that kind of a behavioral health emergency well it's trying to change attitudes but what you'll see in the most successful communities is and look emergency rooms can't turn people away and either congeals and so that's why they become the dumping grounds so what you're going to see in bear County Texas of San Antonio they have a crisis drop off the center those are picking up steam Miami it's the same place try to get them away from both the emergency room away from the jail into a facility where you can
52:00 - 52:30 be properly diagnosed and funneled then into the right services and so that is kind of the goal and we're trying to do that in Virginia but we're also you need to talk about a mind shift here and it's and it's a mind shift you know I just told you about how bad things were in miami miami has been working hard to change that and judge Leichman said you need to get down here because I'm tired of hearing your speech and so I went down there and last week they had 50,000 calls related to mental health last year
52:30 - 53:00 they have gotten CIT so well tuned down there they only made 109 arrest and he said it's a matter of pride now that if an officer gets spit on he doesn't charge him with assault even if an officer gets pushed he doesn't judge them with assault because it's a matter of pride i'm going to get this person help that's a cultural shift that's amazing and that's what you have to that's what you your goals should be you know trying to get that in both emt and
53:00 - 53:30 you know emergency rooms I I think most emergency rooms that I've dealt with don't want them there and low priority not going to make any money so let's just sit them in the corner and hopefully they'll leave and that's what happened to me know thanks for an extraordinary mission today I appreciate what you've done and and what you'll probably continue to do to raise our consciousness I serve as an
53:30 - 54:00 administrator in the business side and I've seen a change of treatment versus incarceration and we have the leverage when treatment or you want to go to jail that works but it only works best when you have the capacity talking about the rooms and housing and jobs when people get out of prison so the problem that I see is the lack of funding and it goes
54:00 - 54:30 back to the what the gentleman man in fact well we had him in jail in the 60s let him out of jail I let him out of the hospitals now they're in jail I think that we I would hear like to hear your viewpoint Oh what is the next step to get to where your son's at because we have all the steps to get there but I don't think we had that final step the final thing is that i was taught a lesson myself I thought I knew a little bit about the community and I had was with a group of people that says you
54:30 - 55:00 know five percent of the people were treating costs eighty percent of the funding and I call them well the flicker frequent flyers right and a doctor in the audience's you know we shouldn't be doing it is a failure of the system not their failure first and I think we've got to recognize that it's there for that is that is we have failed to properly treat them and call them frequent flyers is not the way to do it and when until we get to that five
55:00 - 55:30 percent and figure out the lack of capacity instead of talking about all these other things I'd like to hear your comments on that to make all of us where your son's at today well you've asked me several questions you're right it's about five percent costs about fifty fifty percent of services it's the old million-dollar Marie if you're familiar with that story where they followed a guy in New York years ago and they ended up costs a million dollars in services we're lucky in law enforcement because we actually can prove in most cases is
55:30 - 56:00 cheaper to provide housing etc there's a real confusion here when it comes to money you go out in the street and there is no money and people have just cut cut cut cut cut yet we spend 200 billion dollars a year on mental health in this country a California just had the millionaires tax they got a billion dollars and their services are much better than ours so it's a you know what is going on here is that not getting to them is that what senators
56:00 - 56:30 Murphy and Cassidy have a new bill that they've introduced trying to get more money into the kind of services we need to read Tim Murphy is trying to redirect Samsa so they focus more you know trying to get evidence based trying to look supporters of aot are saying that this assistant outpatient treatment is what's necessary to help this hardcore group of folks who never get better they're always homeless are always sick so those
56:30 - 57:00 are some of the kind of tools that you know people are looking at I think we need to rethink think outside the box a little and we have to realize that this a community problem let me give you an example emergency room doctors say we don't have any money okay well under the Affordable Care Act hospitals were fine 468 million dollars last year for frequent utilizers people who they were supposed to treat and then ended up coming back a few day months later all right who are the biggest folks in that
57:00 - 57:30 group it's our group all right well then think outside of putting a pill in someone's mouth why don't you build housing why don't you help build you know somewhere for these folks to go so they can get help you have to get the community involved and recognize its that problem and then you can also get real cute and do what I did in Virginia which got me absolutely nowhere which is say hey we have the lowest cigarette tax in the nation if we raised it ten cents we'd raise X amount of money and that of course mediately got shut down so but
57:30 - 58:00 look for innovative ways thank you Thank You Daniel I appreciate today at the City Club of Cleveland in recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month we've been enjoying a Friday forum with Pete early author and mental health advocate and that brings us to the to the end of today's forum thank you very much mr. early thank you ladies and gentlemen and our listening and broadcast audience our forum is now adjourned for information on upcoming
58:00 - 58:30 speakers or for podcasts of the City Club go to City Club org production and distribution of City Club forums on ideastream are made possible by the generous support of PNC and the Raskin family fund with additional funding from Cleveland State University Robert Conrad and the pain fund