Press Coverage

MOMI founder Jerri Clark was featured in a World magazine article August 14, 2025, that shares intimate details from her family's struggle. The article goes straight into the topic of involuntary treatment: Right to be rescued? States debate forced hospitalizations to save the mentally ill--even if they don't want saving. Clark tells about her son's first serious suicide attempt, by jumping from a highway bridge into a raging winter river, to describe why involuntarily treatment is sometimes the most humane option.

Writing for the magazine of her alma mater, the University of Kansas, Jerri Clark shared the narrative of her family's experience and what moved her into advocacy work: My Son’s Story: A mom’s journey through mental illness, suicide and advocacy. 

Speaking at the annual summit of the Texas Judicial Commission on Mental Health, Jerri Clark offers examples from her own lived experience and those of other families to inspire practical shifts within the system. When sharing a collage of pictures of her son, Calvin, she says, "This is what mental illness steals."

On a popular podcast focused on mental health, Jerri Clark reveals critical gaps and offers solutions: "The legal criteria that require dangerousness have gotten so extreme that they require evidence of harm, which in effect means they require harm and violence instead of preventing harm and violence. Psychiatric deterioration legal standards can shift that." 

Jerri Clark and Hunter Graham shared their tragedies to highlight a need for change in Oregon. Hunter's son killed his mom because of untreated psychosis, but the system saw his condition as not severe enough to warrant treatment until his actions shattered their family and landed him in the criminal system for life. On Nov. 4, 2024, KGW8 examined how Oregon waits too long before mandating treatment and care. 

MOMI participated on Oregon's Commitment to Change (CTC) work group that made recommendations to the state's Chief Justice. Talking to KOIN 6 for a  June 22, 2023, report about her role on the CTC, Jerri said, "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. That’s when he met criteria. That’s when the dangerousness standard was met.”   

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.

The Seattle Times featured Jerri Clark on July 25, 2021, as part of its grant-funded Project Homeless. Jerri explained to the reporter that watching her son navigate Washington’s overtaxed and complicated mental health system "was like watching a penny slowly falling down a large coin funnel."

Reporter Austin Jenkins interviewed Jerri and Calvin Clark for a radio report, A ‘Miserable Underworld.’ One Washington Mom’s Fight to Change the Mental Health System. In the Aug. 27, 2018, report, 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 clearing Calvin’s apartment after his death, Jerri Clark spoke with reporter Deborah Wang for a  radio broadcast and article, We get it wrong when we say the point is to be happy. A mother reflects after her son dies. In the March 27, 2019, broadcast, Jerri explained: "I think the point is to explore all of life’s complexity.” 

Jerri Clark is among 64 co-authors in an award-winning book by Dede Ranahan, Tomorrow Was Yesterday: Explosive First-Person Indictments of the US Mental Health System—Mothers Across the Nation Tell It Like It Is. Dede started her website and blog in response to her own son’s death. Her website, titled after her first book, Sooner than Tomorrow, builds solidarity among SMI-impacted  families. 

King 5 reporter Susannah Frame produced a series of broadcasts about the inhumane treatment of individuals incarcerated with SMI. The November 9, 2022, report includes an interview with Jerri Clark and shows how Washington's competency evaluation got significantly worse after a federal court case called Trueblood was supposed to resolve the problem. Although numbers have improved, much work remains to decriminalize illness.