Our Mission
We believe that the personal stories of individuals with firsthand experience of our public mental healthcare system have the power to shift attitudes and inspire much needed positive change. To that end, we are creating Unlocked: Stories of Public Mental Health Care, an educational program that illuminates the issues of public mental healthcare through the stories of people connected to a single state hospital – Kings Park Psychiatric Center – and the community programs, peer services, jails and prisons which took the hospital’s place after its close in 1996.
With the extensive collection of narratives shared through Unlocked, it is our intent to promote approaches to mental healthcare that rely on mutual respect between caregivers and those receiving care.
To do so, we believe it is necessary to address the serious gap in healthcare education that exists today. Young people, and even many seasoned professionals, know little of the public mental hospitals’ tragic past, and the kinds of neglect and abuse that once flourished in many of them. As a result, they may think that re-opening similar facilities is a good solution to current problems. We disagree. By telling the Kings Park story through the accounts of many people who lived and worked there, we want to make sure that even as the once massive institution fades from view, the history of what went on there comes alive for future generations. Our aim is to encourage person-centered, recovery-based care.