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Our Mission
Our mission is to put an end to the cycling of jails, hospitals, locked facilities, homelessness and the tremendous waste of human lives by creating a supportive pilot home for people with chronic serious mental illness living with schizophrenia spectrum disorder. This home is both preventive and restorative. It has 24 hours of care seven days a week, is staffed with a live-in team trained in the LEAP method and has a structured program that is co-created with the residents providing all the elements for a successful recovery. Our mission is also to multiply this model by providing education to families and counties on how to build the Whole Mind Symphony model in their communities.
Our Vision
We strongly believe that people with chronic serious mental health issues can experience a meaningful life and a sense of belonging when they are living in the safe, beautiful environment of a long-term supportive home with same age range peers with common interests and diagnosis. Just like a symphony is created through the collaboration of many musical instruments, we believe that creating harmony in the mind requires a holistic approach embracing a variety of practices validated by scientific research as having the greatest impact on an individual’s wellbeing: the Physical and Psychosocial Environment, Biochemistry and Nutrition, and a purposeful Lifestyle. Music is at the center of our program for both its brain healing qualities as well as for nurturing self-expression and promoting bonding and socialization. The Whole Mind Symphony program provides nutritional psychiatry, therapy, recreational activities, vocational training, family and community integration helping each resident to feel whole again. We want to see our very special residents feeling hopeful despite their health struggles, knowing they have a stable permanent home where they are always welcome.
History - A Tested Model That Works
We started as a group of NAMI mothers whose sons with SMI were in hospitals or locked facilities and we gathered monthly to brainstorm housing possibilities. We knew that board and cares lack the daily support our sons needed. Most housing options are for individuals who are able to take medication on their own. We started researching supportive housing models that were successful. The few that offer support still had the risk of sudden eviction. We wanted an approach closer to the homes offered to people with Developmental Disabilities. We found that the Lighthouse model, in Arizona, was closer to what we wanted. The Lighthouse project started by the efforts of parents who couldn’t take any longer the agony of seeing their sons deteriorating inside a broken mental health system. Their non-profit ACMI joined forces with Marc Community Resources. Today they have 16 homes. Their results are an inspiration for us!
Advocacy
From an initial group of mothers, four of us created the group Mother Advocates for the Seriously Mentally Ill, and we spent several months compiling our lived experiences to write a very thorough report entitled “The Official Report of Failures and Solutions” of the Los Angeles mental health system. The Report opens with the heart-breaking personal stories of several mothers, including mothers have lost sons to the system’s negligence. It includes what is not working in the current system and why - depicting lived situations that show how psychiatrists, staff, and facility policies have hindered recovery and exacerbated the poor health and living conditions of our loved ones. Suggested Solutions, many of them inexpensive, are shared. These changes if implemented would improve and modernize the functioning of the system.
The one-page summary can be read here.
The full report can be read here.Our group in 2021 presented this report to the director of Intensive Care Unit, Dr. Amanda Ruiz, to the LA Mental Health Commissioners, to the teams of LA Board of Supervisors Barger, Mitchel, and Hahn.
Our group continues to advocate for the SMI participating in all opportunities to have our voice heard. To request a presentation or interview click here
A Program Based On A Successful Healing Experience
The experience of one of the WMS founders Anna Penido, provides the foundation for the WMS program. One of her sons is a living example of how one’s life can be more than recovery, can be thriving! Step by step, researching for the least aggressive approaches to healing, Anna discovered in her 12-year journey the scientific studies, the caring psychiatrists, the insightful integrative MD’s that were open to engage in a collaboration, which led her son to build and adopt an individualized treatment routine that helped him achieve and remain in balance. Mother and son worked as a team during the first 4 years combining nutrition intake, therapy support and creative and nurturing activities (art, gardening) supported by the home environment. During these years her son learned to perceive how everything impacts his physical and mental stability: what he eats, activities he chooses and environments. Because of consistent nutritional support the antipsychotic medication dosage was able to be reduced under the supervision of a psychiatrist, to a minimal amount. Anna 's son leads a life free of stressors, and elected maintaining his well-being and health balance as his major goals. This is the legacy that WMS is offering to all with serious mental illness. Learn from Anna's knowledge enrolling at the "Nutrition for Mental Health" course.