May is Mental Health Awareness month.
Mental health professionals have worked so hard for decades to try to get society to a point where positive management of mental health issues is normalized, not stigmatized.
Trump’s administration began mental health awareness month by announcing that $1 billion of mental health funding for schools is being stopped
This is not an isolated attack on mental health support. Mental health is under attack because of the wider attack on DEI anywhere diversity, equality and inclusion are positive values. Mental health services are being defunded and dismantled and people with mental health conditions are once again being stigmatized – and even potentially criminalized.
Cuts in funding (of mental health services directly or as a flow-on effect of cuts in health funding more generally) have already negatively impacted or threatened to impact mental health provision to
homeless children, mental health research, crisis hotlines and veterans. Some mental health facilities are facing closure because of general healthcare funding reductions. Books about mental health issues are being banned and cuts to Medicare and Medicaid will make mental healthcare unaffordable for many. This mental health month, please speak up for mental health care and demand that mental health care services continue to be funded. Judges have had some success in blocking cuts to healthcare services so perhaps that might be a successful temporary measure while a more permanent fix is worked out. Thank you for your time.
