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ISPS-US 23rd Annual Conference | November 1-3, 2024 | University of Pittsburgh & Duquesne University | Pittsburgh, PA & Hybrid Online | Preliminary Schedule
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Structural Influences on Mental Health Crisis (Care) in the US: Barriers and Pathways to Transformation (Hybrid)
Saturday November 2, 2024 5:30pm - 6:30pm EDT
Union Ballroom
Decades after deinstitutionalization, mental health crisis care in the U.S. remains fraught with systemic challenges. Inadequate funding, fragmented services, and policy shortcomings contribute to persistent disparities. Crisis services are critically inadequate and increasingly carceral despite intentions to shift to community-based, person-centered approaches. People experiencing psychosis are more likely to face discrimination and harm within this carceral system. Additionally, underfunded social welfare services and rising living costs make meeting basic needs difficult. Consequently, crisis responses to unmet needs are often pathologized, leading to poverty, unemployment, criminalization, incarceration, housing precarity, and coercive interventions. These issues are exacerbated for historically marginalized populations facing additional discrimination.

Compounding these challenges is the increasing cooptation of peer-based services into the medical system. While peer support can offer holistic and effective care that normalizes experiences of psychosis, its integration into a medical model risks undermining its foundational principles of mutuality and lived experience. This shift can negate the efficacy of peer-based approaches, making it harder to address the root causes of mental health crises compassionately and person-centered.

Despite these systemic barriers, pockets of hope and innovation exist. Community-driven grassroots initiatives and novel research and advocacy efforts are beginning to reshape mental health crisis care. This highlights the potential for transformative change by challenging cultural narratives around psychosis and promoting inclusive approaches to wellbeing.

This roundtable will:
1. Explore how structural influences scaffold our mental health crisis care system and perpetuate adverse mental and social outcomes.
2. Foster substantive conversations about the current state of mental health crisis care.
3. Encourage collaborative efforts to address systemic barriers.

The stigmatization and criminalization of mental health crises often result in punitive rather than compassionate responses. Amplifying diverse lived experiences into leadership roles can help address a critical need to expand non-carceral interventions that prioritize recovery and dignity over punishment.
Speakers
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Sarah F Porter, MHS, MSW

University of Washington School of Social Work
Sarah F Porter (she/her/u), MHS, is an MSW/PhD student at the University of Washington School of Social Work. Her research in critical suicidology seeks to improve crisis mental health services by addressing societal and systemic factors that influence suicidality. Sarah’s dissertation... Read More →
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Jeffrey Ciak, MSW

Virginia Commonwealth University
Jeff Ciak is a second-year doctoral student at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Social Work. Jeff has worked with adults with psychiatric disabilities and substance use disorders in a variety of settings. These professional experiences inform his research interests... Read More →
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Jess Stohlmann-Rainey

Much Madness LLC
Jess Stohlmann-Rainey (she/her) loves to talk about suicide, peer support, and liberation. She is a mad care worker located in so-called Denver (unceded ancestral lands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute), and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Sioux) people). She is currently... Read More →
avatar for Nze Okoronta

Nze Okoronta

Executive Director, Solstice House Peer Respite and Warmline
Nze is a harm reductionist, facilitator, and consultant. They are known for work surrounding crisis services, public health impact and social policy. They provide consultation around crisis alternatives, peer run respites, peer run warmlines, peer support supervision & harm reduction... Read More →
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Tim Saubers

National Association of Peer Supporters
Saturday November 2, 2024 5:30pm - 6:30pm EDT
Union Ballroom
  Breakout Session, Hybrid

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