The Six Goals of the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health

Goal 1
Americans Understand that Mental Health is Essential to Overall Health

• Advance and implement a national campaign to reduce the stigma of seeking care and a national strategy for suicide prevention.
• Address mental health with the same urgency as physical health.

Goal 2
Mental Health Care is Consumer and Family Driven

• Develop an individualized plan of care for every adult with serious mental illness and child with serious emotional disturbance.
• Involve consumers and families fully in orienting the mental health system toward recovery.
• Align Federal programs to support Comprehensive State Mental Health Plans.
• Create a Comprehensive State Mental Health Plan.
• Protect and enhance consumers' rights.

Goal 3
Disparities in Mental Health Services are Eliminated

• Improve access to quality care that is culturally competent.
• Improve access to quality care in rural and geographically remote areas.

Goal 4
Early Mental Health Screening, Assessment, and Referral to Services Are Common Practice

• Promote the mental health of young children.
• Improve and expand school mental health programs.
• Screen for co-occurring mental and substance abuse disorders and link with integrated treatment strategies.
• Screen for mental disorders in primary health care, across the lifespan, and connect to treatment and supports.

Goal 5
Excellent Mental Health Care is Delivered and Research is Accelerated

• Accelerate research to promote recovery and resilience, and ultimately to cure and prevent mental illness.
• Advance evidence-based practices using dissemination and demonstration projects and provide oversight by a public-private partnership for their implementation.
• Improve and expand the workforce providing evidence-based mental health services and supports.
• Develop the knowledge to inform policy and practice in four understudied areas: mental health disparities, long-term effects of medications, trauma, and acute care.

Goal 6
Technology is Used to Access Mental Health Care and Information

• Use health technology and telehealth to improve access and coordination of mental health care, especially for Americans in remote areas or in underserved populations.
• Develop and implement integrated electronic health record and personal health information systems.