RAFT
Recovery Alternatives to Forced Treatment
Our Purpose
The PeerVoice NC Recovery Alternatives to Force and Coercion (RAFT) Coalition is focused on advocating for quality, voluntary services for individuals when experiencing crisis.
RAFT is person-driven; optimizes the autonomy and independence of a person in distress; provides individuals and/or advocates with resources for making informed decisions: and protects the rights of individuals when experiencing acute symptoms. This includes creating environments of non-discrimination relative to other medical care systems.
Peers and allies play a crucial role in an individual’s ability to weather disruptive and distressing experiences of crisis. Professionals and systems of care may also become allies when educated and supported to provide ethical and recovery- oriented care a person who has developed a mental health crisis.
YEAR
(coalition acronym) launched its mission
#
members strong today!
HOURS
of community outreach & counting...
1000+
Happy Customers
Peer Voice NC is bringing together strategic leaders inclusive of psychiatric survivors, people directly impacted by involuntary mental health treatment, and allies for recovery based alternatives.
This coalition will examine why, how, and to what extent forced treatment is being used in NC. Peer Voice NC is bringing together strategic leaders inclusive of psychiatric survivors, people directly impacted by involuntary mental health treatment, and allies for recovery based alternatives. Our main focus is to examine why, how, and to what extent forced treatment is being used in NC by:
- Utilizing existing training and resources on Psychiatric Advanced Directives (PAD) in order to create the most effective means of supporting individuals, families, and providers in upholding a psychiatric patient’s choice of treatment when confronted with involuntary hospitalization.
- Developing resources and information for individuals and families who are experiencing the turmoil of involuntary treatment. In doing so, RAFT will delineate the difference between treatment and recovery.
- Researching and developing an annotated listing of writings relevant to the topic of involuntary treatment, including statistics on the number of involuntary commitments in NC over the last ten years.
- Identifying existing alternatives to forced treatment that could be more widely implemented, as well as crisis alternatives being used elsewhere in North Carolina with positive outcomes. These include initiatives such as drop-in crisis centers, peer respite centers, crisis response units, and implementation of trauma-informed care in crisis settings.
PVNC’s RAFT coalition is comprised of people impacted by involuntary hospitalization, family members, clinicians and lawyers that are gathering data and examining the use of involuntary commitment (IVC) in NC including:
- Volume of IVC across each region
- Reasons for IVC (policies, legal, beliefs, liability, community gaps)
- Alternatives to IVC (national and international models and policies)
- Impact of IVC (trauma, cost, service engagement, human rights, etc.)
- Strategies to expand community-based recovery alternatives
