AHCJ wrapped up its first-ever Summit on Mental Health on Thursday night, with speakers highlighting the strain the pandemic placed on many Americans — especially the young — and  spotlight speakers outlining solutions to a mental health care system that leaves many people’s needs unaddressed.

The summit featured three spotlight speakers who emphasized the gravity of the mental health situation and the barriers to care, why traditional treatments aren’t working, and what is being done in Congress to help fix what keynote speaker Vikram Patel, M.D. called a broken mental health system. “It is failing,” Patel told attendees, as he presented data that showed that in spite of massive U.S. spending on mental health care, key measures show no improvement and/or a decline in Americans’ mental health.

Patel presented his vision for a community-based approach to care that teaches lay people to provide short-term intervention in places — including in the U.S. — where mental health care is scant or non-existent.

Spotlight speaker Bessel van der Kolk, M.D, a psychiatry professor and founder and medical director of the Trauma Center in Brookline, Mass., and author of the New York Times bestseller, “The Body Keeps the Score,” spoke earlier in the week in a similar vein. “Our diagnostic system is in a shambles,” he said during a Q&A session on Tuesday. Despite advances in the psychotherapeutic drugs, he said, data show there are more depressed people now than there were in 1972. “We need to really explore how we can change the mind,” said van der Kolk, whose work focuses on addressing trauma through the body.

Rep. Katie Porter, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 45th District, the spotlight speaker on Wednesday, talked about a particular aspect of the U.S. mental health care system that is desperately in need of change — the intersection between mental health and the criminal justice system.  She talked about the promise of the recently introduced Mental Health Justice Act, a bill that would create mental health responders who can be dispatched in a mental health crisis rather than involving law enforcement whose interventions too often result in injury or death for people struggling with mental illness.

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From devastating death tolls, strict stay-at-home orders, virtual learning, and a constant state of uncertainty, it’s no surprise that the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the state of mental health on a global scale.

Anxiety, depression, suicide ideation and substance abuse rates have surged to alarming levels, with Black and Hispanic communities disproportionately impacted by this crisis in the United States, according to the CDC. To address these growing concerns, AHCJ decided for the first time ever, to dedicate its fall summit entirely to mental health.

“When brainstorming about a theme for this workshop, we realized we have never had a program dedicated specifically to mental health,” said AHCJ Executive Director Andrew Smiley. “During the pandemic, mental health has continued to rise to the forefront as an issue of paramount importance for journalists. We are excited about the panels and sessions assembled for the summit and are confident that our members will generate fantastic story ideas from participating in these sessions.”

AHCJ’s Summit on Mental Health, to be held from Nov. 8-11, 2021, will bring together some of the brightest, most accomplished researchers, educators and visionaries across the country. Experts from major health care providers, public health entities, research institutions and nonprofits will discuss a wide range of mental health topics from the impact of social isolation on the aging community and the impact of the pandemic on teen substance abuse to the complicated topic of vaccine hesitancy and how to report on suicide. AHCJ core topic leaders and faculty as well as a few other seasoned health care journalists will moderate the panel discussions.

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