PsychRights^®
                   Law Project for
              Psychiatric Rights

Coordinators

The "Legal Track" of the 2005 Action Conference for Rights in Mental Health put on by MindFreedom decided its efforts would be devoted to fighting forced "treatment."  For a number of reasons, including being able to utilize the resources available and because the laws involving involuntary "treatment" are state and country specific, the organizational structure and follow-up mechanism decided on is to employ State (and country) Coordinators.  The key tasks the State Coordinators will work on are: 

• Recruiting Lawyers
  • Pro Bono programs
  • Law Schools
  • Lawyer organizations
• Identifying & Recruiting Expert Witnesses
• Finding Cases
  • System Change Cases
    • Appeals
  • Create Trouble for Hospitals
  • Help people
• Providing Information
  • "cookbook" for the various states.
• Coordinating with the MindFreedom Shield Program (http://www.mindfreedom.intenex.net/shield/)

PsychRights will help with technical assistance and advice, including preparing materials for use by the State Coordinators and post state specific information on its website.  The State Coordinators will be the follow up Committee and Jim Gottstein was elected to be the liaison to MindFreedom.

United States

• Alaska -- Jim Gottstein
• District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.)  -- Yvonne Smith,  Interim Coordinator
• Illinois -- Krista Erickson/Jodi Norman
• Massachusetts -- Aby Adams
• Michigan -- Jim Rye, Coordinator Recruiter
• Minnesota -- Louise Bouta
• New Jersey -- Dr. Sal Pizzuro
• New York -- Anne Dox
  • Greater Upstate Law Project.  gulpny.org
• Oklahoma -- Sandy Lykins
• Wisconsin -- Diana Goodavage

International

• United Kingdom Barry Turner

Release of Information Forms

• To PsychRights in Word (RTF) Format
• To PsychRights in Acrobat (PDF) Format
• To Anyone in Word (RTF) Format
• To Anyone in Acrobat (PDF) Format

Last modified 11/14/2006
Copyright © 2005-2006 Law Project for Psychiatric Rights. All Rights Reserved