Serious Mental Illness and Homelessness An interview with California State Senator Henry Stern and Dr. Curley Bonds, Chief Medical Officer for Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health about legislation and programmatic changes needed to better serve highly vulnerable individuals. Curt and Katie talk with both Senator Stern and Dr. Bonds about the limitations of Laura’s Law and the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act as well as the hope for stronger, more collaborative mental health initiatives for individuals grappling with serious mental illness and homelessness. We talk about the practical funding and workforce concerns as well as how to fix them while also supporting mental health professionals.     It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age. Interview with Senator Henry Stern (D-Los Angeles) and Dr. Curley Bonds, CMO for LA County Department of Mental Health Senator Henry Stern is a sixth-generation Californian and native of the greater Los Angeles area who has represented the nearly one million residents of the 27th Senate District since first being elected to serve the 27th Senate District in November 2016. Stern has chaired the Senate Natural Resources & Water Committee since 2018, where he has worked tirelessly to bolster the state’s wildfire preparedness, push to have the state address the climate change emergency, improve our democracy and fight to help some of California’s most vulnerable members.  He was also recently appointed as Chair of the Joint Legislative Committee on Emergency Management. In addition, Stern sits on the Senate’s Budget, Environmental Quality, Judiciary, and Energy, Utilities & Communications committees, as well as the Budget Subcommittee on Resources, Environmental Protection & Energy. A former educator and environmental attorney, Stern received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University and earned his law degree at UC Berkeley. Born in 1982, Stern lives in Los Angeles County with his wife, Alexandra Stern, whom he married in 2019. Curley L. Bonds, M.D., oversees all clinical practices for the Los Angeles Country Department of Mental Health (LACDMH) as well as the full range of programs that function to engage and stabilize clients by bringing them into the Department’s community-based system of care. Dr. Bonds is a psychiatrist with extensive experience in a variety of clinical, academic and research settings. Most recently, he was the Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at Charles R. Drew University School of Medicine in Los Angeles and the Medical Director for Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services. His areas of expertise include healthcare disparities, cross cultural psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, and collaborative healthcare. Dr. Bonds has won numerous teaching and advocacy awards including Chief Resident of the Year in 1996 and The Exemplary Psychiatrist Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness in 2009. He is active with several professional organizations including the American Association of Community Psychiatrists, the Association of LGBTQ Psychiatrists, the Black Psychiatrists of America and the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Bonds is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Fellow of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry. He is a past president of the Southern California Psychiatric Society and the recipient of their 2018 Distinguished Service Award. He completed his B.A. in sociology at Emory University and earned his M.D. from Indiana University School of Medicine. In this episode we talk about: Continuing our special series on Fixing Mental Healthcare in America What the ideal mental health care can look like for individuals with serious mental illness, substance abuse treatment, and navigating homelessness The siloed nature of servi