A huge thank you to everyone who attended our Community Partnership Celebration on the evening of January 29! What a wonderful night with amazing honorees, joyful reunions with old friends, and so much networking and visiting. We will share pictures, the program video and other treasured moments in next week's edition of The Ally.

This week, we share a recent legislative hearing and some information we've gathered about civil commitment procedures across southern states.

I've been a licensed psychologist for thirty years and have worked in public mental health, first in Texas and then in Mississippi, for even longer. In Texas, I worked in a community mental health center, a community crisis stabilization unit, and on a state hospital's adult male receiving unit. I helped with commitments in those settings and did on-call evaluations for commitments for several years, usually in the middle of the night. My husband, who was a psychiatrist, did consulting, including commitment evaluations, in similar settings. 

When we moved from Texas to Mississippi in 1995, many aspects of the states seemed similar. But both my husband and I were stunned at how far behind some of the mental-health system processes, particularly commitments, were in Mississippi.

I do not remember law enforcement jailing any of the many people I worked with in Texas during the commitment process. I've checked with colleagues from that era, and they agree that I remember my experience accurately. It shouldn't happen, and outside of extremely rare circumstances, I don't think it does in other states.

I share this week's information with an open heart. I hope it can prevent someone from ending up in jail. I am very open to feedback about anything we share this week (and all the other weeks, too).

We'll discuss this issue and our plans for the new year on January 31 from noon to 1:00 pm CST during our Families as Allies Live. Please join us. All are welcome!