Forty-two years ago, in a village south of Paris, a French-Canadian created a home where the mentally disabled could live in dignity and where others could learn from them the value of sharing and acceptance. There is now a worldwide network of these communities called L’Arche, the French word for Ark, a symbol of hope. More →

March 13, 2015

Read more of Judy Valente’s May 4, 2006 interview in Chicago with Jean Vanier, founder of L’Arche, a worldwide network of communities for the mentally disabled. More →

March 13, 2015

It was the campaign of one American woman, Jenny Bowen, in Berkeley, California, that brought loving care into the lives of millions of Chinese orphans, most of them girls. Bowen and her husband began by adopting one girl. Then another. Now Jenny Bowen leads Half the Sky, a foundation to deliver responsive care to all China’s orphans. “They’re being treated like their lives matter,” says Bowen. “They know it, and they know they’re loved, so they thrive.” More →

August 22, 2014

With millions of people in India suffering from mental illnesses and only five thousand psychiatrists to treat them, many seek out faith healers to fill in the gap. “Access to care is not there, lack of professionals, lack of medication, lack of awareness, lack of knowledge, so all this leads to only one thing,” says mental health advocate Milesh Hamlai. “You go to the easiest and the most available source of help.” More →

July 18, 2014

“You may come home feeling good, you did your duty, you helped people, you helped keep your unit alive. Then at some point you may start to think,” observes Rita Nakashima Brock of the Soul Repair Center at Brite Divinty School, “who am I that I could do those things? That’s when moral injury kicks in.” More →

June 13, 2014

“We are locking people up in solitary confinement to prevent this violent behavior, and in fact it may actually instigate—because of the impact on their mental health—even more violent behavior,” says Heather Rice-Minus, a senior policy advisor for Justice Fellowship. More →

February 28, 2014

Rights groups are working to identify the unmarked graves of mentally disabled patients in Minnesota to give them the respect and dignity in death that they didn’t receive in life. More →

November 15, 2013

It doesn’t make moral, ethical, or fiscal sense, according to Cook County sheriff Tom Dart, to house people who are mentally ill in jails and prisons. More →

June 21, 2013

At the Episcopal Church of the Holy Comforter in Atlanta, most of the congregation is made of up of people with mental illnesses—bipolar disorder, clinical depression, schizophrenia—who worship and pray together. More →

June 22, 2012

At the central jail in Bhopal, India, the prison superintendent says a yoga program calms the jail’s atmosphere and speeds the release of inmates. More →

April 29, 2011