New York State Chapter · National Shattering Silence Coalition
NSSC New York
September / October 2026 Newsletter
Prepared by Dave Meyers, Marianna Vertsman and Valerie Franchitti
Welcome
Here at NSSC New York our goal is to make mental health services more accessible, available and helpful to those most in distress. We support the seriously mentally ill, who suffer from the brain-based illnesses of schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar 1, bipolar 2 and serious depression. All people deserve a happy life, for even the most severely distressed patient in a psychiatric unit can have the capability to be independent when properly treated.
This Suicide Prevention Month, it is important to acknowledge the many crisis services workers who put an amazing foot forward in the midst of today's service scarcity. It is crucial to fight to implement better and more plentiful crisis services here in New York — to save lives and prevent tragedy.
News
We are thrilled to share the news of a tremendous milestone for NSSC. The National Shattering Silence Coalition has been awarded $229,337 in corporate giving support from Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) to launch our Crisis to Care (C2C) Family Navigation Pilot. With this funding, NSSC will launch a 12-month pilot in partnership with Primary Record, combining Family Navigators with a secure, family-centered digital health platform.
The pilot will support 50 families across five states, with navigators responding within 24 hours of referral and helping families navigate the continuum from pre-crisis planning through emergency care, discharge, and post-hospitalization care. The project will also include an independent process and impact evaluation.
National legislative update
NSSC submitted a letter of support for the newly introduced IMD CARE Act, and the coalition is named among the bill's endorsing organizations in the sponsors' press release.
Introduced by Representatives Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Cliff Bentz (R-OR), the bill would open a Medicaid state plan amendment option for the treatment of serious mental illness — extending to SMI the option the SUPPORT Act created for substance use disorder treatment — in place of the temporary waivers states must now seek and renew.
The AOT report, and the argument about it
The Office of Mental Health's final report on assisted outpatient treatment in New York — the document the current AOT debate is arguing over.
A commentary questioning how independent the state's “independent” evaluation of assisted outpatient treatment actually was.
Both sides of the expansion argument, including the disability-rights objections, in an accessible radio segment.
Recording of an event
Free to watch · Full video on YouTube
Rewriting the Future of Serious Mental Illness
Recorded Thursday, October 1, 2026
Presented at the New York Public Library with the Jeff and Lisa Blau Adolescent programme, in person at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library and by Zoom livestream. If you could not be there, the full evening is now online — four presentations on where the science of serious mental illness is heading:
- Dr. Alexander Charney with Dr. Nicole Simons — what we know about serious mental illness, how that understanding is changing, and emerging approaches including gene therapy, AI and deep brain stimulation.
- Dr. Benjamin Glicksberg and Dr. Matteo Danieletto — a demonstration of vision wearables, and how audiovisual data with AI analysis may support clinical assessment and symptom monitoring.
- Sandip Trivedi — the AI companion chatbot he built for his brother: its development, safety features and ethical guardrails as it is tested with a larger audience.
- Dr. Nicola Cascella and Erin Decker — deep brain stimulation for treatment-resistant schizophrenia, including what undergoing DBS is actually like.
Watch the recording on the Library's YouTube channel →
SMI in the news
People with serious mental illness die 10 to 20 years early, driven largely by cardiovascular risk. This study compares GLP-1 prescribing for adults with and without SMI from 2018 to 2024.
A trial turning on whether a mother acted in a state of postpartum psychosis has opened a wider conversation about care for women after giving birth.
Between 2021 and 2024 the prevalence of cannabis use disorder rose significantly in both men and women, unsettling the claim that cannabis is not addictive.
Federal grants to states and territories under the administration's executive order on treatment-first policy.
A bill to strengthen what 988 operators can actually dispatch nationwide, and to let Medicaid pay for it.
A federal civil rights suit filed in Miami argues that delays in providing medical assistance amount to deliberate, unconstitutional punishment of people with mental illness.
NSSC's own David Hager, MD, argues that treatment refusal in schizophrenia is a neurological deficit rather than an autonomous choice — and that a consent-based system therefore routes untreated people toward jail.
A request for proposals to establish new Clubhouses in the Central, Hudson River, Western and Long Island regions. If your community lacks one, this is the opening.
What the Clubhouse model actually does in the lives of peers — and why many clubhouses remain underfunded.
The head of a major UK mental health charity says the sector has avoided the subject for fear of feeding stigma.
An opinion piece arguing that the August 31 attack reflects a lack of interest in providing care for people with serious mental illness in New York City.
Legislation proposed in the wake of the August 31 Times Square stabbing, aimed at getting help to people in crisis before it becomes an emergency.
Commentary
How important are “social determinants of mental health”?
Dave Meyers · Archivist, National Shattering Silence Coalition
As a white man from a middle class background, they seem to have nothing to do with my diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type. This lack of correlation is true for many throughout the state of New York. So how important is it, really, to incorporate the “social determinants of mental health” into suicide prevention funding? This is Governor Kathy Hochul's plan this year in acknowledging Suicide Prevention Month.
As a survivor of two severe suicide attempts, and as the archivist of NSSC who has organised hundreds of articles on mental illness and neurology, I believe funding for suicide prevention should be firmly planted on mental illness and its biological components. This includes research for more effective medications, and a full continuum of care for individuals who have been diagnosed with severe mental illness.
I understand Governor Hochul has done much to address mental health throughout the state, but I believe that deeply addressing the biological aspects of mental illness will help improve services everywhere.