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TRCN Policy Work: Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act

RESOURCES:


From record heat waves, storms, wildfires, droughts, floods, and other disasters, to increasing disruptions to the ecological, social, and economic systems people rely on for food, water, shelter, jobs, incomes, health, and other basic needs, the global climate-ecosystem-biodiversity (C-E-B) crisis is rapidly escalating.


A public health approach must be used in communities to strengthen everyone’s capacity for mental wellness and transformational resilience for relentless adversities as residents help reduce the C-E-B crisis to manageable levels and enhance local conditions. ​


Transformational Resilience Coordinating Networks (TRCN) are local multi-sectoral coalitions that develop and implement locally appropriate strategies that help all residents remain socially, psychologically, emotionally, and behaviorally healthy and resilient during persistent adversities.


An important part of our policy work includes supporting the Congressional “Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act of 2023” (CMWRA), which is urgently needed because the U.S. is experiencing an epidemic of mental health issues.


Almost 53 million American adults experienced a diagnosed mental illness in 2021. Millions more adults and youth are suffering from mounting persistent extreme (or toxic) stresses related to family, social, community, economic, and other forces.


Added to these problems are the widespread traumatic stressors generated by climate-change generated cascading disruptions to the ecological, social, and economic systems people rely on for food, water, shelter, incomes, healthcare, safety, and other basic needs.


Although they will remain very important, individualized mental health and social services cannot address the scale or scope of today's mental health epidemic. They have no chance of preventing or healing future epidemics of mental health problems generated by accelerating climate change-generated toxic stresses, disasters, and emergencies.


One reason is there will never be enough trained mental health or social service providers to assist all of the people who are traumatized. In addition, many of the people that need mental health services will not engage due to fear of being stigmatized if others find out, and other reasons. Most important is that mental health services are reactive: they assist individuals mostly one at-a-time only after they experience symptoms of pathology and do not proactively prevent the occurrence of widespread mental health conditions.


To reduce the nation’s current epidemic of mental health problems, and prevent future ones generated by the climate emergency, the "Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act of 2023" will expand the U.S. approach to mental health to include a public health approach to mental wellness and resilience.



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