SERVING INDIVIDUALS AND FAMILIES LIVING WITH MENTAL HEALTH NEEDS IN MIDDLESEX COUNTY SINCE 1968

Advocacy Center

Advocacy on behalf of Gilead and our clients is a priceless gift anyone can give.

Interested in partnering with Gilead to advocate for the needs of our clients and others impacted by mental illness? Here is how you can help.

April 11, 2019. We had a great day at the State Capital for ADVOCACY DAY!  About 40 staff and clients from Gilead attended the LOB yesterday including the Gateway Team, The Rehab Center Crew and the Valor Duo.  Overall, there were more than 800 nonprofit members of the Alliance (executives, staff, clients, board members and others) who came to the Legislative Office Building to advocate for funding to support community based services.

Advocacy is an essential part of the work that we do and we were proud to everyone who found the courage to speak up and let our legislators know what is important to us.

Thank you to all of you who joined us for a Day of conversations with legislators and visibility.  Your voices were heard and your presence was felt!  Let’s all keep up the Great Work!

To see more photo of the day, from the Alliance’s Facebook album, click here .

 

 

March 4, 2020.  Congratulations to the students from Daniel Hand High School & Gilead’s board member and artist, Suzanne Gaskell for a very successful “Art for Social Change” reception at the State Capitol! Gilead clients and staff loved viewing the portraits created by the student artists!

Inspired by the work of Abby Carter, whose powerful portraits of patrons at the St. Vincent de Paul Soup Kitchen put a face on the struggles of the poor and homeless in Middletown, students at Daniel Hand High School in Madison began a portrait drawing project with the hopes of raising awareness and advocating legislative action for quality mental health care. Gilead Community Services staff and clients were happy to have their portraits drawn. The positive work that Gilead is doing was highlighted in class but, as the project evolved, discussions were had about the societal prevalence of mental illness and substance abuse; no one is immune. The conversation turned to mental health and teens; some students decided to put their face on the issue. The statistics are staggering;  according to the National Institute of Health, nearly 1 in 3 of all  adolescents aged 13-18 will experience an anxiety disorder. Hospital admissions for suicidal teens doubled in the last decade. The National Education Association recently published an article that cited the following alarming data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: One in six high school students reported “seriously considering suicide” in 2017. That statistic included one in four girls an nearly half of gay, lesbian, and bisexual students.

Thank you to Suzanne and her students for spreading awareness and advocating for mental health care!