Reaching a significant milestone, Rep. Tim Murphy’s landmark bipartisan mental health reform bill, called the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (H.R. 2646), tallied 151 supporters Monday in Washington, D.C., with national endorsements continuing to stream in.
Along with a much-welcomed quorum of legislative support, the measure is endorsed by the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which offered full and complete support for H.R. 2646 in a letter to Murphy.
“We have seen far too many active shooter tragedies in our schools, government offices, military facilities and places of business,” the letter read. “FLEOA recognizes that the root causes of these active shooters are in underserved mental health.”
Signed by Dominick Stokes, FLEOA’s national vice president for legislative affairs, the law enforcement organization pledged its commitment to address the problem at its roots, “minimizing the loss of innocent lives and the lives of our law enforcement officers who suit up every day to meet various threats to the safety and security of the American public.”
The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act fractures previously complex legal barriers preventing family members from helping a loved one with a serious mental illness. H.R. 2646 includes ways to expand access to inpatient and outpatient psychiatric treatment; law enforcement and first responder awareness training; mental health workforce, evidence-based care and critical medical research expansion; primary and behavioral care integration; and greater accountability for mental health and substance use parity.
With its focus on delivering acute psychiatric care to the most challenging cases of serious mental illness, H.R. 2646 has gained endorsements from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Treatment Advocacy Center, American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Psychological Association, American Psychiatric Association and many others. Nationwide support for the legislation has come from newspaper editors, physicians, and parents of children with mental illness.
Murphy represents Pennsylvania’s 18th congressional district, comprising suburban Pittsburgh and parts of Allegheny, Washington, Westmoreland and Greene Counties. He also serves as a commander in the Navy Reserve Medical Service Corps and as a psychologist treating Wounded Warriors with post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injury.