Families and friends
fighting for loved ones
with serious mental illness

We are a coalition of family members, caregivers and supporters of persons who have severe neurobiological disorders such as schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder.

We began by focusing on Alameda County but now we embrace friends from all over the region – around the Bay and beyond – to advocate for changes to public health funding, laws, policies and practices that fail to adequately help those with these debilitating mental illnesses.

We believe that too much focus has been on short-term crisis stabilization and there has been no reliable continuum of care for all levels of need. This must be replaced with a commitment to a cohesive system of timely, accessible, quality treatment and dependable case management. Inpatient and outpatient care must be integrated into a continuum that provides both medical care and the social supports needed to enable those with severe mental illness to live their best lives.

We believe that providing these services is less costly in the long run, but more importantly, it will reduce the human suffering caused by inadequate treatment and care.