Mental health impacts all of us, but for people with severe mental illness the system is failing. We lack the guard rails needed to prevent dangerous people from harming others or themselves. If things stay the same we will see more instances of violence like what happened to the beautiful pillar of our Minneapolis community, Robert Skafte. 

To honor Robert Skafte’s life and to address the tragic way in which he died, we must advocate for change. Therefore, we ask elected officials to: 1) invest in intensive early intervention treatment for people developing psychosis or bipolar disorder; 2) support a pilot project targeted to people experiencing symptoms of a mental illness who do not want to seek treatment to try to engage them in treatment voluntarily before they meet the commitment standards (danger to self or others); and 3) continue to increase funding for intensive services for people living with a serious mental illness.

We want to try #2 (there was a bill introduced last session) to fund peer specialists who can go out and try to engage someone in treatment when the symptoms first appear (reappear) for up to 90 days. Typically by then if someone isn’t in treatment they will meet the commitment act standards. But in the meantime, someone is following them along really watching for that as well. The reason for #1 is that we can really help people with these two types of mental illnesses never get to the point where they don’t think they are ill.

Written in collaboration with NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) MN.