Janine Francolini, Founder/Executive Director, the Flawless Foundation SOURCE: Huffington Post Last weekend I spent two days in the Napa Valley where $2.8 million dollars were raised by the fierce advocates for curing all brain disorders, Garen Staglin and Patrick Kennedy. These two men are the co-founders of One Mind for Research which aspires to end…
It’s that time of year. Back to school — new beginnings, anxiety, stress and excitement all rolled into one. We have a few important lessons to think about this back to school season with our new landscape (post Newtown) of concern around the national discussion about security and safety in our schools. Recently we had…
Janine Francolini, Founder/Executive Director, the Flawless Foundation SOURCE: Huffington Post Over the past month there has been an important national discussion concerning discriminatory remarks about people living with mental illness in the media. My recent posts were written as open letters to Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and Brian Williams inviting them into a discussion about…
Janine Francolini, Founder/Executive Director, the Flawless Foundation SOURCE: Huffington Post * This post is being written as an open letter to Brian Williams, Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil about their recent portrayal on their shows of people living with mental illness. Dear Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and Mr. Williams, As you read this, you may…
Janine Francolini, Founder/Executive Director, the Flawless Foundation SOURCE: Huffington Post Dear Dr. Phil, I am writing in response to your show the other day that has thankfully become headline news and to express my gratitude to you, our dear colleague Pete Earley and USA Today News for opening up this very important conversation. (For readers…
Janine Francolini, Founder/Executive Director, the Flawless Foundation SOURCE: Reclaiming Futures Last week at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, I attended the Criminalization of Mental Illness Symposium. National experts shared fourteen presentations in an effort to make sense of hundreds of statistics and research studies on such topics as recidivism, gun…
Janine Francolini, Founder/Executive Director, the Flawless Foundation SOURCE: The Huffington Post This week we celebrated the Fourth of July! A holiday we associate with fireworks, flags, picnics at the beach and a festive celebration of our country’s independence. So why on the fourth was my first thought not of fun and frolic but of…
Janine Francolini, Founder/Executive Director, the Flawless Foundation SOURCE: The Huffington Post Awareness! And Awareness is what we have been focusing on this past month, as President Obama signed a proclamation declaring May as National Mental Health Awareness Month (the first president to do so!) Mental health was prominently featured in the media — including personal…
Janine Francolini, Founder/Executive Director, the Flawless Foundation SOURCE: The Huffington Post Last year, on Good Friday and Passover, I was confronted by a man at a gas station in Oakland. He was in an obviously altered state and blurted out that he had just been released from jail. In that moment when he was…
Janine Francolini, Founder/Executive Director, the Flawless Foundation SOURCE: The Huffington Post This post is dedicated to the most forgotten, underserved children in our country. Those who quickly fall through the cracks and into the school-to-prison pipeline. When practicing peacefully in one of our therapeutic yoga programs, these are the children who teach us hope…
