A consortium of prominent mental health care experts and consumer advocates is launching an ambitious and innovative initiative to combat the stigma of mental illness among the elderly.

The Geriatric Mental Health Foundation seeks to educate the public about late-life mental health care needs and promote healthy aging strategies for preventing and coping with geriatric mental illness. With a series of projects starting next month, the Foundation takes its place as one of the nation's most valuable geriatric mental health care resources for consumers and experts alike.

"The Geriatric Mental Health Foundation seeks to arm older adults and their families with information about mental illness and aging and to educate the public that treatment is effective and available," said Foundation Chair Stephen Bartels, M.D., M.S., a geriatric psychiatrist with the Dartmouth Medical School. "The Foundation is a source of help and hope."

The Foundation, a not-for-profit organization established by the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry (AAGP), will initiate its agenda on November 13th and 14th in Washington, D.C., with the first of two roundtables to discuss the stigma and discrimination of geriatric mental illness and health care. A diverse group of roundtable participants will share their experiences and focus on solutions to help individuals and families identify problems and understand how to best seek care.

A second roundtable will be held on January 29th and 30th in Los Angeles. Both roundtables are funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and held in collaboration with the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign, a project created during the 1999 White House Conference on Mental Health. A report stemming from the work of the two roundtables will be released later in 2004.

With six percent of Americans age 65 and older suffering from a depressive illness, the Foundation's mission includes educating the public about the nature of late-life depression and how to get help. The Foundation soon will release a Depression Recovery Toolkit for consumers, to emphasize that depression is treatable and help is available. The Toolkit, scheduled to be available early next year, will include fact sheets on depression, symptoms, treatments, payment options and resources.

"The Toolkit will help to emphasize the fact that depression is real, it's not just because we're old. Depression can be treated, and successfully too, one no longer has to suffer in silence," said Hikmah Gardiner, senior advocate and Geriatric Mental Health Foundation board member.

And finally, to address the general state of mental health care for older adults, the Foundation will host a public forum on February 21st, 2004 in conjunction with AAGP's 2004 Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland. The forum will bring together consumers and mental health care experts to discuss barriers to quality care and models for improvement, such as those outlined in the reports provided to President Bush's New Freedom Mental Health Care Commission. This event will be a unique opportunity for patients, their family members, caregivers, clinicians and researchers to discuss why quality mental health care is not easily and widely accessible, and to examine possible solutions.

The Geriatric Mental Health Foundation is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization established by the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. To learn more about the Foundation visit www.gmhfonline.org or call 301-654-7850. For consumer brochures available from the Foundation, including Caring for the Alzheimer's Disease Patient: How You Can Provide the Best Care and Maintain Your Own Well-being, visit www.gmhfonline.org/p_c.