How Philanthropy Can Fight Substance Abuse And Promote Mental Health

Health Affairs Aug 30, 2018
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Mental-health-substance-abuse

Giving Compass’ Take:

• Health Affairs discusses a recent report that lays out recommendations for how we can address the addiction and mental health crises in this country through policies and investments.

• The main takeaway is that foundations and funders shouldn’t be afraid to fail. Only through risk-taking and empathy will we come up with sustainable solutions for those who are suffering.

• Here’s a success story for improving mental health care in Virginia.

In 2017, Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and Well Being Trust embarked on a joint effort to advance policy solutions to the drug, alcohol, and suicide epidemics. The first product of this partnership was a report, Pain in the Nation: The Drug, Alcohol and Suicide Epidemics and the Need for a National Resilience Strategy, funded by Well Being Trust and the RWJF, and published by TFAH.

That report focuses specifically on practice and policy solutions to reduce deaths from drugs, alcohol, and suicide — ranging from expanding the use and availability of rescue drugs, sterile syringes, and diversion programs, to limiting hours and density of alcohol sales, to supporting state suicide prevention plans, to expanding social-emotional learning and mental health services in schools.

The following highlights specific actions mentioned in the report that could be taken to solve some of the problems around substance misuse and mental health.

  1. Investing in prevention and creating more resilient families and communities must be a higher policy priority — especially for foundations.
  2. Foundations can be instrumental in helping their communities create consistent standards for identifying and treating mental health and substance misuse for multiple conditions and across community and clinical delivery settings.
  3. We must make accessing services for mental health and substance misuse conditions easier and make services more affordable for everyone.

To truly move the needle, we must be policy-influencers and advocates. Foundations can harness the power of our endowments through impact investing — using our knowledge of the financial world to ensure that everyone can realize their fullest potential.

Read the full article about fighting substance abuse and promoting mental health by Benjamin F. Miller and Anne De Biasi at Health Affairs.

Since you are interested in Advocacy and Policy, have you read these selections from Giving Compass related to impact giving and Advocacy and Policy?

  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
    Click here for more.
    Fighting Hate Is Key For Nonprofits

    America finds itself in a moment of political polarization. At times, nonprofits can reflect or even magnify that polarization. This is a recurring theme even within the non-profit sector and expressing disagreements on challenging topics. Read more about non-profit organizations on Giving Compass Some people do abuse nonprofit status to spread hateful rhetoric. There have been witnessed overwhelming evidence that hateful agendas have been pushed by individuals within nonprofit organizations. That hostility can yield tragic consequences: The FBI documents thousands of hate crimes each year, with most directed against vulnerable people in marginalized communities. But there are rare cases where the nonprofit form is abused by those with hateful agendas. At GuideStar, we have heard a rising demand from our users for information on hate groups — which I’ll (imperfectly) define as those organizations that denigrate a group of people based on their identity. Given that concern, in February we began to flag the profiles of 46 organizations that had been designated as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In the weeks and months since, we have heard from both supporters and critics of the center’s approach. We acknowledge that there is a deep and difficult conversation to be had with Americans of all political, cultural, and religious backgrounds about how to most appropriately identify hate groups. That is a line not easily drawn. Over the last couple of weeks there is interest on if there is an option for mediation and what that role would look like. We don’t know if there is, or if GuideStar would even be the right organization to play that role. But we all must seek to climb out of our echo chambers and engage with those who have different views.We need a new kind of conversation about hate in the nonprofit sphere. One thing is very clear, the conversation about hate in the nonprofit sphere needs improvement. Read the source article at The Chronicle of Philanthropy Visit GivingCompass.org for more information on crime prevention  

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