The Social Justice Policy Collective
Vision and Principles
The Social Justice Policy Collective was formed to advance programs and policies that address the needs of people living with mental health conditions who experience financial insecurity, racism, substance use/misuse, and trauma, and who rely on public supports to meet their basic needs. These challenges often contribute to homelessness, incarceration, chronic health issues, and frequent, adversarial, engagement with law enforcement.
It is the overarching goal of the Collective to create a mental health system that promotes health and wellness through services and supports that are defined by service users and their allies.
The Collective supports solutions that:
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are developed with the active engagement of community members and mental health service users;
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promote racial equity and human rights,
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emphasize social determinants of health, including safe affordable housing, preventive services, and community-based natural supports;
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are shown to be cost-effective and are highly regarded by service users; and
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can be replicated on a scale commensurate with the need.
Background on the Collective and the Campaign
The Collective grew out of a series of policy and planning discussions held between February and April 2022. These sessions were organized and led by the Public Policy Lab of New York City and were underwritten by a private donor. Unlike typical workgroups or roundtables that limit membership to senior officials or agency leaders, the policy discussions included a diverse group of participants, especially people who use mental health services.
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These sessions established a solid consensus around several key issues: that affordable housing is central to recovery and wellness, that programs and services must offer choice and respect, and that new approaches that emphasize prevention are needed to break the cycle of poverty, homelessness, and incarceration for thousands of people with mental health conditions, especially people of color.
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After the second session an appeal was made for volunteers to join a steering committee that would guide and inform the recommendations. All of those who have volunteered, a majority of whom identify as people who use mental health services, are listed here.
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Further research conducted during this period revealed that the New York State legislature had long been an advocate from reform of the community-based mental health system, which was seen to be widely ineffective since the 1950’s. Several of those reports, first issued in 1976 and onward into the 21st century, are collected on this website.
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Many of the recommendations put forward by the legislature and others in these reports are remarkably relevant: that peers, providers, and community members should be included in the local planning process as well as be engaged to evaluate the effectiveness of services; that the state and local governments should sign agreements about what services would be provided and how they would be financed; that former patients should have access to housing, clubhouses, drop-in centers, and a 24/7 number to call if they needed assistance; and much more.
Based on the planning discussions and research it was decided that the world did not need another position paper or set of recommendations. What was needed, instead, was a strategy to implement many of the ideas and solutions that were known to be effective and were consistent with the five principles for quality services, which are outlined above.
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The Campaign
The Seat at the Table campaign was launched in June 2022 with the goal of reforming the mental health planning process in all arenas by including service users and their allies as active participants in all decision-making sessions. It was also agreed that the initial focus for this effort would be to reform the process by which local governments create annual “local services plan,” which are required by state law.
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We believe there’s an opportunity to amend the laws around how the state and localities define, implement, finance, and evaluate their mental health services, such that these plans would lay out measurable goals and objectives for programs and services that people want to use and advance recovery and wellness. Part of the solution requires changing who is in the room making decisions, but it also means enhancing the skills and capacity of local governments to engage in person-centered and participatory planning.
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In addition to the Seat at the Table campaign, the Collective intends to advocate for reform of how services are planned in other settings. One example are the comments we submitted on New York State’s recent application for an “1115 Medicaid waiver” to create new regional health and mental health planning entities.