Treatment Advocacy Center was founded in 1998 by Dr. E. Fuller Torrey. After working for 15 years at a Washington, D.C. clinic serving unhoused people with severe mental illness, Dr. Torrey authored the book “Out of the Shadows: Confronting America’s Mental Illness Crisis,” detailing failed policies that have led to suffering, lost chances for recovery, and the widespread criminalization of mental illness in the U.S.
Dr. Torrey was contacted by Vada Stanley, who expressed an interest in funding efforts to help this vulnerable population. After consulting with other experts in policy and legal fields, Dr. Torrey concluded that treatment alone could not correct this disastrous course. Advocacy to reform state laws was necessary to make it possible to treat people before illness caused them to fall into homelessness or incarceration, or to become dangerous to themselves or to others. With the generous support of the Stanley Family Foundation, Treatment Advocacy Center was founded to meet this challenge.
Our Focus
Treatment Advocacy Center pushes for reform of how we as a society serve people with severe mental illness (SMI). With the unique needs of those with the most serious illnesses always in mind, we approach systemic change through state and federal legislative advocacy; policy research; implementation of lifesaving assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs; and engagement with the media on the realities of SMI in our country, all in order to ensure that we make informed decisions. People’s lives depend on it.
Policy failures have made treatment more likely in jail than in a hospital.
“Mental health courts exist because the system has failed. If these people were being treated, they wouldn’t end up with misdemeanor charges or felony charges against them in the first place. The very existence of mental health courts is really an indication of the system’s failure.”
-Dr. E. Fuller Torrey
Shaping Our National Discourse
Treatment Advocacy Center’s statistics are widely cited in the media and our subject matter experts are routinely asked to comment on local and national issues about severe mental illness. All of our work is driven by evidence and research to ensure that facts and data shape the national discourse about SMI.
Paul Frysh, WebMD
E. Fuller Torrey and Elizabeth Sinclair, Psychiatric Times
Ellen Barry, New York Times