Season Three Trailer

02/19/22 • 3 min

Heart Forward Conversations from the Heart

I am grateful for good advice I received when I started this podcast in the summer of 2020: break your podcast into seasons. For a small operation like Heart Forward, this allows for breathing room and the opportunity to plan and curate guests that are worth listening to!

So, we’ve taken a six-month break since our last episode was uploaded in August 2021. We are ready to launch a 10-episode season on March 14, 2022.

This season, I am grateful to have identified a studio in Glassell Park in Los Angeles where I can record my interviews in person. Words cannot express my appreciation for Peer Mental Health who, for the first two seasons, came alongside me with technical advice and a digital editor, Paul Robinson, who was instrumental in bringing 19 episodes to the Buzzsprout platform.

For Season Three, my home is Verdugo Sound in Glassell Park, and I am grateful to have the support of Aaron Stern as my audio engineer and editor.

The theme remains the same: The American mental health system is broken. Our guests are invited to help us understand the practical impact of this failed system or offer ideas for change. We continue to be inspired by the global best practice in Trieste Italy. We do not give up hope.

Please come on back on March 14, 2022!

To support this podcast:

Heart Forward LA - Main Giving Page (networkforgood.com)
Grateful for listeners and supporters!

Send us a text

So, we’ve taken a six-month break since our last episode was uploaded in August 2021. We are ready to launch a 10-episode season on March 14, 2022.

For Season Three, my home is Verdugo Sound in Glassell Park, and I am grateful to have the support of Aaron Stern as my audio engineer and editor.

Please come on back on March 14, 2022!

To support this podcast:

Heart Forward LA - Main Giving Page (networkforgood.com)
Grateful for listeners and supporters!

Previous Episode

Is there anything more complicated than our public mental health funding system? Making sense with Alex Briscoe

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This episode tackles the gnarly tangle known as our public mental health funding system. So many questions I had. Why is there a chronic shortage of mental health treatment beds at every step of the continuum? Why do people get released too early from the hospital when they would benefit from long-term care? Why are mental health clinics limited in the services they can provide to their clients? Why are there no measurable outcomes applied to how funds are invested?

I curated ten observations about the system from my vantage point as a concerned layperson and asked Alex Briscoe to respond. He does a masterful job of providing clarification to either refute, affirm or amplify upon these observations.

Alex brings 13 years of experience working at the Health Agency in Alameda County, seven years as director; a $700M agency with over 6,000 staff members. He helps reduce to layman’s terms a complicated system that is tied to very stringent requirements associated with federal Medicaid policy (known as Medi-Cal in California) and compounded by the complications associated with the two different state actions to disburse state funds to localities (referred to as “realignment” in 1991 and 2011). Added to this mix are funds authorized by voter passage of Prop 63 in 2004, otherwise known as the “millionaire’s tax” which funds the Mental Health Services Act.

Alex Briscoe’s current role is that of Principal at the California Children’s Trust and that is where you can reach him. Here is a glimpse into their history and impact.

Articles about Alex, his origin story and his accomplishments in this space

Community health: taking smart steps (sfgate.com)

Health as a Foundation for Social Justice and Racial Equity – California Children's Trust (cachildrenstrust.org)

As Need for Mental Health Care Surges, A Funding Program Remains Underused – California Health Report (calhealthreport.org)

Behind California’s Troubled Mental Health Care Funding System (imprintnews.org)

General reference sources pointing to public mental health finance

A Complex Case: Public Mental Health Delivery and Financing in California (chcf.org)

CalAIM: Behavioral Health Proposals (chcf.org)

MH-MAA-Implementation-Plan-Revised-7.1.21 (ca.gov)

This interview brings to a close Season Two. This podcast is entirely supported by listeners and supporters of Heart Forward LA, which allows us to maintain an independent voice. Please consider a contribution of any amount to help underwrite Season Three, planned for its launch in January 2022.

Next Episode

undefined - Unglamourous expertise: Recovery from acute psychosis to reflections on system change. A conversation with Lee Davis, Alameda County Mental Health Advisory Board

Unglamourous expertise: Recovery from acute psychosis to reflections on system change. A conversation with Lee Davis, Alameda County Mental Health Advisory Board

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Lee Davis is currently the chair of the Alameda County Mental Health Advisory Board. In her official bio, she indicates that she is a Civil Engineer and Journeyman Electrician by profession. She comes to her work on the Advisory Board as a woman with lived experience of a mood disorder.

In this interview, we explore three themes about which Lee is passionate:

1. The case for involuntary treatment

2. The lack of capacity in our so-called continuum of care

3. Her assertion that the failure to invest in the requisite infrastructure to treat people and promote their recovery is morally wrong and socially debilitating

In addition, we explore Lee’s extraordinary life journey, about which she writes with remarkable vulnerability in her blogs.

Being Bipolar. Maybe it is my unisex name. Maybe it is... | by Lee Andrea Davis | Medium

The Continuum of Consciousness; a Bipolar woman’s perspective on Delusions | by Lee Andrea Davis | Medium

Other organizations she references in this interview:

Alameda County Families Advocating for the Seriously Mentally Ill

Articles about the February 2022 sleep-in organized by FASMI with which Lee was involved.

Families of the Mentally Ill Call for Better Treatment Not Better Jails in Alameda County – CBS San Francisco (cbslocal.com)

Oakland: Protesters sleep on sidewalk, demand mental health care (mercurynews.com)

Link to the annual report for the Alameda County Mental Health Advisory Board