MAY 2023 - The Sozosei Foundation launched in the months before the pandemic hit. I took my seat as the inaugural Executive Director in the pandemic’s early days – June 2020. Our focus then, as it is now, is on the decriminalization of mental illness. To us, this focus has evolved into a clear goal: to increase access to mental health care in communities so as to eliminate the inappropriate use of jails and prisons for the diagnosis and treatment of mental illness.
The mental health impacts of COVID have validated the importance of our goal, and, as many of you know, we are spending much of this year asking ourselves how and if our work is getting us any closer to the decriminalization of mental illness. With this newsletter, I am happy to share a bit of what we are learning so far, including: the challenge of measuring impact, the importance of staying focused while working on a complex issue, the role of convenings in meeting our goal, and the power of collaboration. I’ll take these in order.
MARCH 2023 - March and February call upon us to remember Women's History and Black History. History is important. It allows us to find inspiration, discover new ideas, and deepen our understanding of the world in which we live. It also gives us a framework to consider the future.
The history of the criminalization of mental illness is one we consider with care at the Foundation. Our consideration began in 2020 with an online convening, A Brief History of the Criminalization of Mental Illness, followed by a panel discussion on the history of emergency response at the 2021 Sozosei Summit to Decriminalize Mental Illness (Knowledge is Power: Using the History of 911, Legacies of Racism and Discrimination, and Lived Experience to Design for a Better Tomorrow)...
FEBRUARY 2023 - Here at the Foundation, we view the winter months as a time to reflect and recharge. With a focus on our core values of creativity and curiosity, we began the year asking ourselves: how might we measure the Foundation’s impact since the launch of our decriminalization of mental illness portfolio in the summer of 2020?
Correctional facilities in the US are considered the largest provider of mental health services.1 The Sozosei Foundation is tackling the question—"What can be done to accelerate solutions so that we eliminate the inappropriate use of jails and prisons for mental health care?” But tackling the criminalization of mental illness is complex and there is no single solution or ‘magic bullet’ to eliminate the use of jail or prison for the treatment of people with mental illness. Identifying effective solutions is difficult, in part, due to the limited availability of data needed to evaluate whether solutions work.
To understand the Sozosei Foundation’s approach to impact, a team from the RAND Corporation interviewed grantees, representatives from partner organizations and thought leaders; reviewed scientific and grey literature; and met bi-weekly with the Foundation’s Executive Director. This document summarizes what the RAND team learned about the Foundation’s approach to impact and an evaluation strategy that aligns with this approach.
The Sozosei Foundation launched its Resilient Communities Program (RCP) in the summer of 2020 at the request of Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc. (OAPI), with the intent of evolving the company’s longstanding commitment to philanthropy. The goal of the program was to refine the company’s philanthropic commitment by designing guidelines and priorities to support diverse, under-resourced communities where the company has a presence. Over the two years of its grantmaking, the program provided over $1 million in grants and served over 177,000 people across six target communities.
When COVID-19 swept across the United States in the Spring of 2020, Sozosei had just formalized its governance structure and was in the midst of a national search for its inaugural executive director. Simultaneously, Sozosei – with leadership from its Board of Directors — moved swiftly to address the immediate needs of patients, healthcare workers, and families impacted by COVID-19.