Human Rights Expert: Is ECT making mental healthcare better or worse?
What Is ECT? Electroconvulsive therapy sends electricity through the brain. The voltage can be as high as 460, and the current causes a surge of electrical activity, resulting in a seizure. ECT got its start in 1934 when psychiatrist Ladislas Meduna, having recognized...
Human Rights Expert: Why Everyone Should Care About Coercive Psychiatry
To Lead the World in Freedom, We Must Start With Mental Health Around the world, civil liberties are declining. People in the United States have long celebrated these freedoms and have woven them into the fabric of American culture. The right to have autonomy over...
CCHR Florida Receives PRNEWS Nonprofit Award 2022 for Social Responsibility
Awarded for outstanding work, CCHR developed a successful strategy to organize a campaign resulting in the passing of legislation to protect parental rights. Many apply but only few are chosen. Each year PRNEWS Nonprofit Awards spotlight organizations challenging...
CCHR Hosts Continuing Education Course on the Florida Mental Health Law
The virtual course for mental health professionals is designed to help them identify the basic human rights impacted by the law and its unintended consequences. The mental health law in Florida, known as the Baker Act, allows for individuals of all ages, including...
Mental Health Watchdog Offering Continuing Education Course on the Baker Act
The virtual course for mental health professionals will help them identify the basic human rights impacted by the Baker Act and its unintended consequences. The mental health law in Florida, known as the Baker Act, allows for individuals of all ages, including...
Tens of Thousands of Children Sent for Involuntary Psychiatric Examination in Florida
Each year on October 10th World Mental Health Day is observed for the stated purpose of raising awareness on mental health issues. This year the Florida chapter of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a watchdog organization, hosted a seminar on mental...
Watchdog CCHR to Host a Baker Act Rights Seminar for World Mental Health Day
During a meeting of the Children’s Baker Act Task Force, it was revealed that a significant number of children sent for an involuntary psychiatric examination did not meet the criteria to be taken into custody. Unfortunately, this is not new information. The mental...
Watchdog Campaign to Restore Parental Rights Reaches Over 370,000
Recognized across the state for helping parents whose children have been taken to a psychiatric facility for involuntary examination under Florida’s mental health law, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) launched a public information campaign earlier this...
Staffer sexually abused 19-year-old at Tampa Community Hospital, lawsuit says
The woman, who was not named in the lawsuit, was admitted on June 3, 2018 to undergo a mental health evaluation. She was then sexually groomed and abused by employee Frank Lasso during her five-day stay, according to the lawsuit. It was filed in Hillsborough Circuit...
What are Parental Rights?
Even before the current pandemic scare, Florida parents have worried about protecting their children, particularly at school. The fact that children were being regularly taken from school without prior parental notice or agreement for involuntary psychiatric...
Mental Health Watchdog Hosts Legal Symposium Highlighting Baker Act Abuse Prevention
The Florida chapter of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) hosted its fifth conference on the Baker Act which has been notoriously featured in the headlines for the past few months due to very young children being taken into custody. The symposium, held at...
CCHR Calls Involuntary Psychiatric Examination of Children in Florida a Human Rights Abuse
Over the past two weeks there has been a viral reporting of the tragic involuntary psychiatric examination of a 6-year-old girl in Jacksonville, Florida. Called a Baker Act, involuntary psychiatric examination is part of the Florida mental health law and it applies to...
Watchdog Calling for an Investigation into the Baker Acting of Children in Florida
In 2018 an astounding 36,078 involuntary psychiatric examinations were initiated on children in Florida, an almost 19% increase over the past four years. [1] Called a Baker Act, an involuntary examination of a minor allows for a child to be taken into custody and...
CCHR Warns: Baker Acting the Elderly Can be Fatal Due to ‘Transfer Trauma’
Transfer trauma, also known as relocation stress syndrome, has been studied since the 1960s and according to controlled studies the mortality rate for elderly that are transferred is 2-4 times higher than those that are not subjected to this type of stress. [1] All...Contact CCHR Florida
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