The National Alliance on Mental Illness is a nonprofit, grassroots, self-help, support and advocacy organization of consumers, families, and friends of people with severe mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic and other severe anxiety disorders, and other mental illnesses that affect the brain.

Psychiatric advance directives are relatively new legal instruments that may be used to document a competent person’s specific instructions or preferences regarding future mental health treatment.  Psychiatric advance directives can be used to plan for the possibility that someone may lose capacity to give or withhold informed consent to treatment during acute episodes of psychiatric illness.

Updated list of each state's mental health parity law.

United Way of King County mobilizes the community in ways that no single agency, individual, or government can to enhance the ability of people to care for one another.

In 2006, Washington’s mental health care system received a D. Three years later, the state received a C. Modest improvements have occurred, but serious problems and gaps remain, compounded by looming budget cuts.

Submitted to the State of Washington Department of Social and Human Services Health and Recovery Services Administration Mental Health Division, June 2007

In 2001, the Washington State Legislature directed the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) to conduct a study of the long-term outcomes of the state’s more than 120,000 public mental health consumers. In Washington, community mental health services are overseen by 13 Regional Support Networks (RSNs) under contract with the state Division of Mental Health.

The purpose of this report is to examine regional variations—related to client characteristics, availability of services, patterns of service utilization, and the extent of evidence-based practices—and lay the groundwork for future analyses of long-term outcomes among adult consumers of mental health services in Washington State.