momi in the news

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MOMI is a grassroots effort to improve treatment access and care for individuals impacted by severe psychiatric conditions. 

Suicide was the result of poor care for the 

son of MOMI founder Jerri Clark. 

Calvin Clark died March 18, 2019, at age 23. These website pages include details of his story and how everyone can play a role 

in changing the system. 

MOMI founder Jerri Clark wrote a fresh idea about where to start fixing the system that was published in the Seattle Times July 1, 2023. Click below to read, and please share with changemakers and visionaries!

MOMI founder Jerri Clark shared her family’s full story in an August 2021 feature article for Kansas Alumni Magazine, 

“My Son’s Story: A mom’s journey through mental illness, suicide and advocacy.” 

From the article:

"In disbelief, I watched my son’s world tilt away from a bright future punctuated by academic accolades and toward incarcerations, suicide attempts and hospitalizations in locked wards that didn’t make him better."

Poor access to medically necessary, involuntary services was a barrier to appropriate treatment for Calvin. MOMI is now a member of Commitment to Change, a work group reviewing treatment access laws in Oregon.

From a June 22, 2023, KOIN 6 report:

 “When my son died, I knew how desperately ill he was, but he didn’t meet criteria for involuntary care until he stepped off the roof of a hotel and plunged to his death, Clark said. “That’s when he met criteria. That’s when the dangerousness standard was met. So the system, in effect, is designed to require tragedy. It is not designed to prevent tragedy.”   

Two months before her son, Calvin, died from suicide, MOMI founder Jerri Clark shared her story with the nation in a Jan. 10, 2019, segment of Brief but Spectacular, produced by Steve Goldbloom for PBS NewsHour.

Video synopsis:

"Calvin was in college when his erratic behavior began, eventually leading to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. His run-ins with law enforcement convinced Clark that medical and legal systems have very little tolerance for individuals with serious psychiatric issues. She shares her brief but spectacular take on why mental illness 'should never be a crime.'"

The Seattle Times featured MOMI founder Jerri Clark on July 25, 2021, as part of its grant-funded Project Homeless, “Becoming homeless in Seattle helped him find psychiatric help. His mom says it shouldn’t have taken that long.”

From the article:

 "Trying to help her son navigate Washington’s overtaxed and complicated mental health system, Jerri said, was like watching a penny slowly falling down a large coin funnel. She watched him spiral closer and closer 

to the bottom for years."

Reporter Austin Jenkins interviewed Jerri and Calvin Clark for a radio report and online article published Aug. 27, 2018, “A ‘Miserable Underworld.’ One Washington Mom’s Fight to Change the Mental Health System.” Calvin spoke about how his suicide attempt by jumping from a highway bridge seemed to be the standard required to get help.

From the article:

"Calvin said he was homeless, depressed and hearing voices when he walked to the mid-span of the I-5 bridge over the Columbia River between Vancouver and Portland and jumped....

“I had to actually attempt to take my own life to even start to get the help that I needed.” 

While cleaning her son’s apartment in Seattle after his death, MOMI founder Jerri Clark spoke with reporter Deborah Wang for a March 27, 2019, public radio broadcast and article, “We get it wrong when we say the point is to be happy. A mother reflects after her son dies.”

From the article:

 "Jerri said she is grateful to have had Calvin in her life. “I think we get it wrong when we say the point is to be happy...I think the point is to explore all of life’s complexity, and Calvin’s very complicated life gave me layers of complexity that I couldn’t possibly have had without him.” 

MOMI founder Jerri Clark has shared her thoughts through poetry and prose on a website called Brave Expressions. She wrote a poem, “Uncompleted Recall,” after receiving a postcard from Ford Motor Company that was 

addressed to Calvin after his death. 

Her article, “Hopelessness can bring strength,” describes a philosophy that has enabled her to find her feet and take action in the face of 

heart-breaking circumstances. 

From the article: 

"I started to consider that giving up hope might help me heal and continue to function. Hope is stuck in the future. Agency is right now. I decided to focus on what I could do instead of waiting with hope for things to sort themselves. I also had to give up hope that doing the right thing would get me what I wanted. Seeking right action was worth it either way."

 MOMI founder Jerri Clark is among 64 

co-authors who provided content for an award-winning book by advocate Dede Ranahan, “Tomorrow Was Yesterday: Explosive First-Person Indictments of the US Mental Health System—Mothers Across the Nation Tell It Like It Is.” The book is available for sale on multiple platforms and includes a list of action items to inform and inspire advocacy. Dede Ranahan started her website and blog in response to her own son’s death and includes Calvin Clark on her In Memoriam page. Her website, titled after her first book, Sooner than Tomorrow,  helps to build solidarity among families impacted by 

severe mental illness. 

Seattle-based King-5 reporter 

Susannah Frame included the story of Jerri and Calvin Clark as part of a series of broadcasts about Washington State's inhumane treatment of individuals incarcerated as a result of their severe mental illness conditions. 

The November 9, 2022, report shows that Washington's competency evaluation and treatment system has gotten significantly WORSE since a federal court case 

called Trueblood was supposed to begin resolving the problem. 

Instead of waiting in jail for the federally allowed 7 days, inmates are waiting up to 7 months for mental health treatment 

to replace punishment. 

Aware Now produced a short film 

about suicide, "Still Here," sponsored by National Shattering Silence Coalition. 

In the film, Jerri Clark says, 

"I wish Calvin was still here. 

He's not...but he should be." 

For those who are still here, 

there is a lot of work to be done.