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Former First Lady's Leadership Paves Path for Field
Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has provided exceptional national leadership to the mental health field for more than half of a century. Her landmark work on stigma and recovery has paved the way for much of the progress that we have been able to achieve in recent years.
First, a little background. From 1971 to 1975, Rosalynn Carter’s husband, future President Jimmy Carter, served as governor of Georgia. During this period, Rosalynn Carter’s interest in mental health was sparked by the heart-wrenching stories she heard about abuse, trauma, and stigma of those with mental illness. She served as a member of the Governor’s Commission to Improve Services to the Mentally and Emotionally Handicapped, as honorary chairperson of the Georgia Special Olympics, and as a volunteer at an Atlanta hospital.
During Jimmy Carter’s 1976 campaign for the presidency, Rosalynn Carter became the first future first lady to make her own campaign promise: If her husband were to be elected, she would devote her efforts to improving the care and lives of persons with mental illness. Shortly thereafter, the new president created the very first President’s Commission on Mental Health in 1977, and the former first lady served as its honorary chairperson. She advocated strongly for and gave testimony to Congress to support the passage of the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980. This act created a bill of rights for persons with mental illness and a system of community care for persons with serious mental illness. It was passed by Congress and signed by President Carter late in 1980, but repealed by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.
After returning to Georgia, the former president and the former first lady created the Carter Center in 1982. The new center included a Mental Health Program led by the former first lady. This program has played a major role in national mental health policy to the present day. The 4 strategic goals of the program include:
- Reducing stigma and discrimination against people with mental illnesses;
- Achieving equity of mental healthcare comparable with other health services;
- Advancing early promotion, prevention, and early intervention services for children and their families; and
- Increasing public awareness about mental illnesses and mental health issues.
The Carter Center Mental Health Program has several hallmark activities, including the following:
The Rosalynn Carter Annual Mental Health Symposium on Mental Health Policy. Between 1985 and 2016, the Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy focused on improving mental health and health care in the US by bringing together national, state, and local thought leaders to learn about and discuss issues such as promoting access to appropriate and affordable behavioral healthcare services, improving the quality of those services, and reducing the stigma and isolation associated with mental illnesses and substance use disorder. Many in our field (including yours truly) have very fond memories of these symposia. Overviews and webcasts for symposia between 2005 and 2016 are available at: Archived Presentations: The Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy.
Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. Beginning in 1996 and continuing to the present, the Carter Center has awarded more than 220 Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism. These fellowships have supported a diverse cohort of journalists from Latin America, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, New Zealand, Romania, South Africa, and the United States. Fellows are deeply committed to exploring some of society’s biggest mental health challenges.
The mental health journalism fellowships program was founded by the former first lady based on an essential premise: Give journalists the resources they need to report on mental health to help dismantle through storytelling the stigma that millions of people face every day. Today, these fellows work within their newsrooms and beyond to report on mental health challenges and transform their communities in the process.
Global behavioral health. In the most recent decade, the Carter Center Mental Health Program has partnered with the government of Liberia and other local and international stakeholders to strengthen public mental health. It has facilitated training of a mental health workforce, assisted the Ministry of Health in implementing national mental health policies, supported anti-stigma programming, built capacity of civil society organizations, and empowered mental health service users and family caregivers. The program has trained over 300 credentialed mental health clinicians who work in all 15 counties in Liberia; 140 of those clinicians specialize in child and adolescent mental healthcare.
Local behavioral health. Using its unique position in Georgia, the Carter Center’s Mental Health Program works to advance evidence-based public policy at the state level, while identifying best practices that can inform policy change in other states and at the federal level. A key focus of its work is to implement and enforce parity laws, so that people can access behavioral health treatment.
At the same time, the Mental Health Program has undertaken a multiyear endeavor to help ensure that the consideration of behavioral health and well-being is at the center of efforts to manage the health of populations. To ensure success, the Mental Health Program has developed tools and strategies that utilize evidence-based approaches to prevention, treatment, and health promotion.
From the inception of the Carter Center Mental Health Program, the former first lady has been at the heart of each of these endeavors. She has been very ably assisted by several program directors and many staff persons over the years. At present, Eve Byrd, DNP, MPH, directs the Mental Health Program.
On a personal note, it has been my distinct honor to work with the former first lady in many of her annual symposia, in the media fellow program, and in her efforts to develop prevention and promotion initiatives. She has always been exceptionally kind and generous to me, as well as astute, and quick to see the possibilities in new approaches. Without doubt, Rosalynn Carter has played a much larger role in reducing the stigma associated with mental illness and in developing the possibilities of recovery than any other national figure.
The former first lady has kept her campaign promise—and has done so every day for the past 5 decades. It is vitally important to recognize her contributions, celebrate them, and honor her.
Ron Manderscheid, PhD, is the former president and CEO of NACBHDD and NARMH, as well as an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the USC School of Social Work.
The views expressed in Perspectives are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Behavioral Healthcare Executive, the Psychiatry & Behavioral Health Learning Network, or other Network authors. Perspectives entries are not medical advice.
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