Chicagoans Want Treatment Not Trauma
We want to remove barriers to care with a strong public health model for community mental health and shared safety that invests in a community care worker corps backed by City-run mental health centers integrated with both mental health crisis call lines and non-police crisis response teams.
What Is Treatment Not Trauma
TREATMENT NOT TRAUMA GOALS
The Treatment Not Trauma campaign has two main focuses: 1) creating and expanding a city-wide non-police crisis response, focusing on mental health professionals, emergency medical personnel, and peer support workers, and 2) Preventing crises by providing supportive everyday care to those who are at most significant risk of mental health crises, police contact, violence, and hospitalization through the establishment of a fully funded public health network.
Reasons to Support Treatment Not Trauma
OUR CURRENT SYSTEMS ARE FAILING TO PROVIDE ACCESSIBLE, SAFE, QUALITY MENTAL HEALTH CARE
78.6% of the city lives in areas with less than 0.2 therapists per 1000 residents, while 21.4% live in areas with 4.3 therapists per 1000 residents. Of the not-for-profits that the city contracts with mental health services, CCW research found that 17% did not serve undocumented residents, and 35% did not serve people without insurance. Less than half offered free services.
POLICE SHOULD NOT BE INVOLVED IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF MENTAL HEALTH CARE
Armed response can drastically escalate a situation, heighten tensions between police and individuals, and potentially lead to a fatality. The risk of being killed by police is 16 times greater for individuals with untreated mental illness than for other residents.
STRONG NEIGHBORHOOD SUPPORT FOR TREATMENT NOT TRAUMA
Neighborhood residents have vocally opposed the closure and cuts to Chicago’s Public Mental Health Clinics for decades. It’s time for the voices of neighborhood residents to be heard. 93% plus supported the TNT advisory referendum, where it appeared on the ballot.
WE NEED SYSTEMS THAT UPHOLD THE DIGNITY AND HUMANITY OF CHICAGOANS FACING MENTAL HEALTH STRUGGLES
When a neighbor or a loved one is experiencing a mental health emergency, Chicagoans do not want the city to respond by sending a police officer with a gun. Clinicians have the resources and training meant to de-escalate situations rooted in a code of ethics and trust.
Our Guiding Principals
Trust
Public health cannot succeed without public trust and sustained funding.
Interwoven
Crisis response works best and is needed least when it is interwoven with sustained crisis prevention systems based on supportive interpersonal relationships with people living at the most significant risk of behavioral and mental health crises.
Quality Jobs
Good-quality public health jobs in disinvested communities are essential to earning public trust and building health and safety. Income via dignified, meaningful work is a key tool for enabling individual and collective well-being.
Community Controlled
Effective care is participatory, inclusive, and community-controlled. Public health succeeds when public systems enable the whole population to care for itself, and each community is empowered to set and realize its own priorities.
Prevention Support
Functional health systems depend primarily upon non-medical, lay care systems for preventive support; professionalized medical care should generally function as a secondary infrastructure that steps in when first-line prevention is inadequate.
