2024 Sozosei Summit to Decriminalize Mental Illness

Curiosity > Ideas > Action

The 2024 Summit centered on the fundamental and purposely provocative question: Do we truly believe that all people deserve access to mental health care? 

Held April 16 and 17, 2024 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia, the 4th Sozosei Summit to Decriminalize Mental Illness gathered leaders and people with lived experience from around the globe to offer ideas on ways to build a world where mental illness is not a crime. 

The Summit also addressed the following questions: 

• How do we ensure that humanity, empathy and compassion are at the center of the care-coercion crossroads, and what role might psychiatric advance directives play in that effort?
• What would be the impact of building an intersectional movement to decriminalize healthcare, including the decriminalization of mental health, substance use, abortion, HIV status, trans healthcare and more?
• Paying for mental healthcare has been an ongoing barrier to treatment, so how can we accelerate change in private and public insurance to ensure access? 
• What do we know about the decriminalization of mental illness (accompanied by an update on the creation of a national research framework)?
• How might a national creative communications campaign disrupt the status quo of the criminalization of mental illness?

The event featured keynote speaker Antonia Hylton, a Peabody and two-time Emmy award-winning correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC, and co-host of Southlake and Grapevine Podcast. Other notable speakers included Jonathan Sherin, MD, PhD, clinical professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences, University of California, Los Angeles and former director of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health; and Lisa M. Gomez, Assistant Secretary, Employee Benefits Security Administration, US Department of Labor.