Memory and Hope can be two healing agents of faith to be used as resources for personal, social, even spiritual improvement. As we remember the events surrounding the broken system that contributed to the end of Mark Rippee’s life this year, let’s not fall victim to bitterness or futile rage. Instead let us rally around the hope of all those who cared for him and still care not to let his memory die.
This year Revealing Voices branched out to promote advocacy for those with brain illnesses and other mental health conditions. The response was tremendous as we grew in listenership and made a large impact not only in the advocacy community but also in the world at large; We hope to continue the momentum we’ve established this year as we explore Faith and Art in 2023.
As our holiday gift to you, we would like to present you with a video from our sound producer Kevin “Earleybrid” Earley of his latest song “Love.” We also are providing you with this link to a tribute playlist for James Mark Rippee. Mark lived as best he could and died as a result of untreated, severe mental illness, traumatic brain injury and homelessness. And to his “twisted twin” sisters Catherine and Linda who loved him to the end. May you have hope in a better life beyond this life of woe.
His love for hip-hop goes back decades, as he wrote and performed his first raps in elementary school at the age of seven years old. His rap name was given to him by a childhood friend, a pun based on his last name.
His challenges with mental health are documented in his father, Pete Earley‘s 2007 best selling book, “Crazy – A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness”, which chronicles his 2002 incident where Kevin broke into a stranger’s house and took a bubble bath before being apprehended by the police.
His work deals with mental health, race, privilege and resilience through adversity. He speaks to inspire and resolve stigma through art. He currently works with youth who live with mental health issues and helps mentor them to recover from their respective challenges.
He has been recording and releasing music for over 20 years. He lives in the Northern Virginia area of the D.M.V. (District, Maryland & Virginia) where he was born and raised.
He was invited to The White House in 2022 following the release of the Ken Burns’ produced documentary, “Hiding In Plain Sight – Youth Mental Illness” which can be seen on PBS.
Janet Hays, is founder and director of Healing Minds NOLA, a 501(c)(3) educational and charitable organization based in New Orleans, LA that focuses on removing funding and policy barriers to treatment and care for people living with no-fault serious mental diseases. She is a problem solver by nature, and works tirelessly with families and individuals impacted by serious mental illness crises to explore and create alternatives to incarceration, homelessness, unnecessary hospitalizations and death.
Janet’s inclusive and collaborative approach to advocacy has resulted in the creation of Louisiana’s first assisted outpatient treatment court that provides therapeutic, coordinated wrap-around support to people who struggle with medication adherence, advancing policy that brings together health and criminal justice systems to study the relationship between mental illness and incarceration and, most recently, the passage of a bill that includes Psychiatric Deterioration as a criteria for civil commitment before the standards of dangerousness to self/others or grave disability need to be met.
Kathryn Parke is a clinical social worker and psychotherapist in Baltimore, MD. She has fifteen years of experience working with severe psychiatric brain disorders in both community mental health systems and clinical hospital settings. Kathryn is passionate about supporting this community and approaches her work with a method of compassionate partnering. She works with patients and their families with a wide array of mental health issues. She is currently in private practice in Towson, MD.
Tony Roberts and co-host, Laura Pogliano, talk with Kathy Day, MPA. Kathy is currently the caregiver, advocate, and conservator for her family member who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2010. She is active in local, state, and national advocacy to promote the need for family involvement for their loved ones’ mental healthcare. Her experience in advocacy and the personal experience in navigating the system of mental healthcare gives her a unique perspective on the challenges families encounter when searching for resources for their loved ones.
In September of 2021, Kathy joined the team at the Treatment Advocacy Center as the senior family liaison. In this role, Kathy locates resources for families across the country to assist and coach them to find help for their family members.
Kathy co-manages Facebook support pages and writes a blog about her experiences navigating the system of care. It’s called Broken and you can find it here: www.facebook.com/ourbrokensystem.
While Eric pours himself into saving the planet one pollinator plant at a time, Revealing Voices goes global with top-drawer advocates for co-hosts, a new sound engineer and guests that continue to explore what healing means in the context of caring for those impacted brain illnesses. In this trailer, Kevin Earley, Laura Pogliano, and I explore what lies ahead with episodes on Advocacy, Faith, Trauma and Art.
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