{"id":13837,"date":"2026-05-04T03:57:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/04\/letter-moving-from-mental-health-awareness-to-accountability-this-may-anchorage-daily-news\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T03:57:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T03:57:39","slug":"letter-moving-from-mental-health-awareness-to-accountability-this-may-anchorage-daily-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/04\/letter-moving-from-mental-health-awareness-to-accountability-this-may-anchorage-daily-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter: Moving from mental health awareness to accountability this May – Anchorage Daily News"},"content":{"rendered":"

While May is Mental Health Awareness Month, \u201cawareness\u201d is no longer enough for families in Alaska. As state policy director for the National Shattering Silence Coalition, I witness the \u201cstandard of neglect\u201d daily.
My adult daughter, Angelia, developed schizophrenia (no dual diagnosis) in 2020. I became her guardian and caregiver in 2023, and we have exhausted every resource since then \u2014 leaving Angelia stuck at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute since October 2025. Approximately $2,500 per day (as cited in recent State of Alaska FY 2027<\/a> governor\u2019s operating budget documents). This equates to roughly $75,000 per month; $525,000 since October 2025.
Let\u2019s do better, Alaska!
This systemic abandonment is more than a moral failure; it is a $343 billion annual \u201cneglect tax\u201d on our economy through ER cycles, homelessness and jail cells. Alaska faces dangerously long ER boarding times and a critical shortage of psychiatric beds.
We must move from criminal containment to clinical accountability, with a national standard of care that replaces the \u201cright to be sick\u201d with the right to be well.
\u2014 Krista Schooley<\/b><\/i>, Soldotna<\/i>
Have something on your mind? Send to <\/i>letters@adn.com<\/i><\/a> or click <\/i>here<\/i><\/a> to submit via any web browser. Please include your contact info. Letters under 200 words will have the best chance of being published. Writers should disclose any personal or professional connections with the subjects of their letters. Letters are edited for accuracy, clarity and length. If you\u2019re citing statistics or published sources, please include citations or links. Read our full opinion guidelines <\/i>here<\/i><\/a>. <\/i>
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Anchorage Daily News
300 W. 31st Ave.
Anchorage, Alaska, 99503<\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While May is Mental Health Awareness Month, \u201cawareness\u201d is no longer enough for families in Alaska. As state policy director for the National Shattering Silence Coalition, I witness the \u201cstandard of neglect\u201d daily.My adult daughter, Angelia, developed schizophrenia (no dual diagnosis) in 2020. I became her guardian and caregiver in 2023, and we have exhausted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}