On Tuesday, June 16, the Miami-Dade County Commission approved the operating plan for the Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery, and the vote was unanimous. After twenty-two years, the doors are going to open. We are overjoyed, and we are thinking of the neighbors who will walk through them. In America, the largest providers…
By Dr. Robin Jones | Perspectives from the Frontlines | Published: June 16, 2026 Today, I sat inside the Commission Chamber at the Stephen P. Clark Center, in Miami, watching decades of relentless advocacy culminate in a single, unanimous voice of approval. It is a morning I will not soon forget. The energy inside the…
By Dr. Robin Jones Director of Strategy and Innovation, Flawless Foundation Energy, community, and wellness took center stage at the recent School District of Palm Beach County School Board Meeting. It was a night of immense pride for us as our incredible partners at Digital Vibez received well-deserved recognition for their phenomenal, transformative work with…
We Lost the Filmmaker. Let’s Not Forget His Cause. The mental health advocacy community has lost a quiet giant. Brian Lindstrom was a Portland, Oregon-based documentary filmmaker who devoted his career to telling the stories of people living with mental illnesses and the consequences of a judicial system that too often criminalizes them. He described…
Miami-Dade didn’t just join the movement to treat mental illness as health problems instead of crimes. It started it. Back in 1989, Miami-Dade opened the first drug court in the nation, betting on the idea that people struggling with substance use deserve treatment and accountability instead of a jail cell. That model has since spread…
Here’s What the Data Says… Mental health policy debates often focus on access and affordability. Those gaps are real, but they sit on top of something deeper: a system that has never treated brain health as a legitimate medical priority, and that has consistently failed the people most in need of it. Five fault lines…
Dr. Robin Jones In my professional life, I am accustomed to structure. I prepare, I plan, and I aim for specific therapeutic outcomes. But as any seasoned provider knows, the “room” often has its own agenda. During my recent wellness workshop at Mental Health America in West Palm Beach, I received a beautiful lesson in…
Help Instead of Jail for our Neighbors In the United States, jails and prisons have become the largest, de facto mental health providers. Facilities like New York’s Rikers Island, Los Angeles’ Twin Towers Jail, and Chicago’s Cook County Jail hold more patients with serious mental illness than any state hospital. Here in South Florida, the…
Flawless Resilience: Understanding Self-Harm and How to Help Self-Harm Awareness, Support, and Resources Trigger Warning: The following content includes discussion of self-harm and emotional distress. This may be triggering for some individuals. Call or text 988 for free, confidential support 24/7. Far too many people carry the weight of self-harm in secret, navigating a world…
Every year, World Sleep Day serves as a reminder of something many of us tend to overlook in our daily routines. Sleep is often the first thing we sacrifice when life becomes busy. We stay up a little later to finish work, scroll on our phones, answer emails, or watch just one more episode of…