Thursday, May 12, 2011

RAND Report on “From Management to Recovery: Emerging Approaches to Serious Mental Illness”

  How do we address serious mental illness? Do we just manage the symptoms, or do we expect recovery? That was the topic for a RAND Corp. panel discussion on January 26: “From Management to Recovery: Emerging Approaches to Serious Mental Illness.”

Ted Sapp, Executive Director of the Nathaniel Anthony Ayers Foundation, spoke as part of the panel, along with Steve Lopez, L.A. Times columnist and author of the book, The Soloist, about his friendship with Nathaniel Ayers. Other panelists included the following:

  - Paul Koegel —Moderater, Associate Director of RAND Health
  - Ron Schraiber, consumer activist now working for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health
  - Alex Young, psychiatrist and researcher at RAND and UCLA, and Director of the Veterans Administration Desert Pacific Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center in Los Angeles

Prior to the discussion, the panelists and their audience were treated to a special performance by Nathaniel Ayers on guitar, trumpet, and cello. Nathaniel’s sister, Jennifer Ayers-Moore, was in the audience, beaming proudly.

For details of this thought-provoking panel discussion, please see the RAND Corp. article, “Facing the Music: Time to Treat Serious Mental Illness Seriously, Say Experts.”

You can view a video from the RAND event here: