WJW MENTAL HEALTH LEGAL FUND
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Mission Statement
WJW Mental Health Legal Fund increases the quality of legal assistance for the indigent diagnosed with Severe Mental Illness (SMI) or Severe and Persistent Mental Illness (SPMI), to ensure these disabled citizens have resources and representation they need to avoid criminalization and homelessness, to preserve their rights, and to live safe, stable, productive lives.
About This Cause
WJW Mental Health Legal Fund is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, developed for persons diagnosed with Serious Mental Illness (SMI) and Serious and Persistent Mental Illness (SPMI) in need of legal assistance for law-related matters. WJWMHLF pursues legal cases intending to end the criminalization of the mentally ill, educates the public about criminalization, and advocates for better long-term resources for the SMI/SPMI disabled, most chronic cases. SMI and SPMI, the most severe mental health diagnoses, includes: • Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) • Bipolar disorders • Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) • Schizophrenia spectrum disorders, including Schizoaffective disorder WJW Mental Health Legal Fund (WJWMHLF) implements programs that increase awareness of issues facing those diagnosed with SMI and SPMI, prioritizing the indigent and providing access to legal services, adequately compensating participating lawyers. This organization commits resources, allowing access to the justice system for those of low to middle-income where legal aid, pro bono, or other disability legal assistance is not available for patients, families, or other legally designated Treatment Advocates (TA), Powers of Attorney (POA), legal guardians, and surrogates. WJWMHLF will initially focus on SMI/SPMI without a co-occurring substance abuse disorder, due to the abjectly low level of help available for mentally ill patients that do not have this as a dual diagnosis. The current void in quality legal resources for those diagnosed SMI/SPMI is a severe, multi-faceted drain on families, psychiatric crisis centers, community mental health centers, and the entire scope of the criminal justice system in cities, states and communities across the country and the world. WJWMHLF will focus efforts where there is the most profound need. WJW Mental Health Legal Fund was founded in support of the most chronic mental health cases in Oklahoma, after learning there is no category for mental health attorneys. These are significant issues in every state, everywhere. WJWMHLF advocates for the indigent mentally ill, and their families. This includes raising awareness on both basic and progressive issues, such as the following: Due to Oklahoma being officially the world’s biggest jailer per capita, and according to the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (DOC), at the end of fiscal year 2021 over 70% of inmates have a serious and/or debilitating mental illness diagnosis. WJWMHLF aims to reverse expensive and detrimental trends, through appropriate legal representation. Goals include: • To mainstream and raise awareness about laws, such as the Oklahoma Statute under Mental Health 43A O.S. § 1-109.1, so those that the afflicted mentally ill have lawfully designated as Treatment Advocates are universally recognized throughout the State of Oklahoma, and to ensure this statute is upheld and respected. • To bring awareness and advocate for change, such as in the current Federal regulation by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that allows a criminalized mentally ill adult to lose subsidized housing, thus creating more homelessness and incarceration, due to their disability. • WJWMHLF will administer financial assistance, including copays for medication, therapies, and/or testing, help with court costs, with future plans to build care facilities modelled after the Top 30 Gold Standard private facilities in other states. • Offer Continuing Legal Education (CLE) and earmark donations to establish fellowships and scholarships at law schools for students interested in Mental Disability Law courses. WJWMHLF will help fund these classes at law schools, so they are consistently available as curriculum. Mental Disability Law and Mental Health Law classes are currently almost nonexistent. WJWMHLF will provide funding to mainstream this area of law, and in the process, encourage a new generation of attorneys to become passionate about helping those diagnosed with mental illnesses, and keep this vulnerable segment of society from being criminalized and filling America’s jails and prisons. These efforts will soon produce an abundance of lawyers well-versed and educated in this complex and neglected field, and the Bar Association in every city or state will never again be able to say they do not have a category for mental health lawyers. Furthermore, WJWMHLF has an even bigger agenda; to build a Law School specifically dedicated to the mission of Mental Disability Law. Until then, by compensating attorneys and pursuing these educational initiatives, the goal to improve devastated lives will be realized in countless ways. This will be a giant first step toward growing a strong grassroots legal movement and change the broken system. In one-hundred years, when looking back on the accomplishments of the WJW Mental Health Legal Fund, supporters will be proud of playing a role in the dramatic turnaround in society. WJWMHLF’s mission to grant better legal access for those diagnosed with Serious Mental Illness issues, whether inpatient or outpatient, whether incarcerated or homeless, or whether you are the patient or a family member feeling hopeless. This will lessen stigma and save lives at every level. At long last, there will be solutions for those long-suffering, because the WJWMHLF team will step up and embrace the most difficult of challenges. What a difference these initiatives will make. The current lack of options for many of the criminalized SMI/SPMI presents as a money issue and a biomedical issue, but the fear issue is also a major component needing a legal overhaul. When humans are treated worse than caged animals, how can we hope for them to have any ability to live productive, stable, meaningful lives? It will take a significant mind-shift for the general public to fully grasp. Now, with WJWMHLF’s thought leaders, what was formerly impossible will be reality, and a new, more compassionate, all-encompassing standard of care will ensue. A prioritized and ongoing goal of WJWMHLF is, with proper permission(s), to procure and analyze fiscal records. Starting with the Oklahoma Healthcare Authority (OHCA) financial records of chronic SMI/SPMI patients (personal data protected). Hiring accountants to do cost-benefit analyses to prove when additional appropriate care is fiscally judicious and economically smart. As example, the OHCA financial records of the individual case that inspired the founding of WJWMHLF, show that the state wasted over $600,000. from January 2015 through August 2018, making this person worse on medications his DNA cannot metabolize. Years of wasted tax dollars, this has been going on for over three decades in one case. Millions of dollars wasted. Apply this to hundreds of patients! Finally, WJWMHLF got answers via litigation in mental health court. This person is damaged and the entire family support system has suffered along with him. What ended this was asserting the patient’s rights as stated in the "Patient's Bill of Rights" (established in every state as a result of the 1972 ruling in the case Wyatt v. Stickney) The unprecedented positive result was only made possible through legal proceedings. How many hundreds or thousands of other suffering individuals is this negatively affecting, causing an economic tsunami and devastated lives? Such is just one example of issues needing to be exposed, corrected, and reversed. Financial support for WJW Mental Health Legal Fund will reverse the spiraling trends faced by every state in the nation. This will result in saving millions if not billions of dollars in state budgets due to those suffering SMI/SPMI falling through the cracks in a perpetually broken system, and most importantly, give these most forgotten human beings real and tangible HOPE. Funding will allow WJWMHLF to hire top tier legal scholars, private psychiatrists, and experts to testify to the benefits of offering more than what has been offered over the past five decades to those who are the most chronic and severely suffering. It is an abject failure that jails are now replacement psychiatric hospitals. Too many people are suffering terribly in jails and prisons, in hospitals and psychiatric acute care facilities, on the streets and in private homes across the country. WJW Mental Health Legal Fund aims to stop the madness and be the change. Criminalization of the mentally ill must end. WJWMHLF will work to overcome many such dire and complex circumstances. WJW Mental Health Legal Fund was borne out of a personal connection to these difficult issues, having lived them for over half a century. These experiences have been lessons in how to move forward. Where the collective community may be at a loss, WJWMHLF is here to fill the void. Needed are many knowledgeable lawyers and funds to engage them. This is a big target. The founders understand it is a tremendous undertaking, but society must care for those that cannot care for themselves. It is fundamental to understand that delusions are real to the person suffering from them, no matter what the cause. Definition of Delusion: “A false personal belief that is not subject to reason or contradictory evidence and is not explained by a person's usual cultural and religious concepts (so that, for example, it is not an article of faith). A delusion may be firmly maintained in the face of incontrovertible evidence that it is false. Delusions are a frequent feature of schizophrenia.” (*) (*) This touchstone must be publicly emphasized, taught, and advanced - to resolve misconceptions and aid in true, judicious empathy. DELUSIONS ARE A DISABILITY People diagnosed SMI and SPMI deserve compassion instead of punishment. Many don’t understand that these are people experiencing a disability. WJWMHLF is moving boldly forward with high ideals, unafraid to think disruptively while presenting facts, poised for a future of promise and change. It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it. WJWMHLF will improve the world, with your help. Here for the least served, most in need. One patient at a time. One day at a time. For all the Jeffs.