Help Us Grow Our Anti-Carceral Mental Health Response Program
*including frontline response during psychiatric incarceration

Project LETS (LETS End the Sanism) is led by and for MMIND* folks, psychiatric survivors, and those navigating oppression-induced psychological, emotional, and spiritual distress.

Across many of our efforts and programs, we work to:

✨ Set up, support, and sustain abolitionist peer support offerings and collectives
✨ Challenge and oppose the inherent ableism, sanism, and violence of the psychiatric system
✨ Build the skills & capacities of all people to show up for our community members
✨ Abolish the current carceral psychiatric system as we know it
✨ Uplift Indigenous wisdom, knowledge, and approaches as Expert
✨ Offer political education and trainings to care workers, care providers, and those invested in new possibilities of equitable and political mental health care
✨ Provide frontline anti-carceral crisis response, peer support, and advocacy survives to those surviving the mental health system
✨ Build bridges across Disabled and Mad communities to fight for our collective liberation and access to every option and choice we can imagine

We build upon and situate ourselves within a legacy of Mad healers, psychiatric survivors, abolitionists, and organizers who have been fighting for Mad Liberation and Disability Justice (in name or practice) for generations.

What is the need?

Across the US, we have seen a ramp up of involuntary psychiatric “treatment” laws that continue to put our community members at risk of abuse, harm, and death. Our community members need access to anti-carceral, holistic, wrap around care; in addition to in the moment information and support to materially change circumstances of folks in (or perceived to be in) crisis.

To our knowledge, we are the only rapid response offering that will help you navigate an involuntary hospitalization, with state-specific information. The need is there, but we must build our internal capacity to meet our community members needs.

What do we do?

Support people who need emergency intervention to avoid involuntary psychiatric treatment; contact supporters on behalf of an individual; organize support teams and rapid response care systems
Support the supporters of folks in psychiatric crisis to avoid state and carceral interventions
Provide holistic anti-carceral options during crisis situations (free peer support sessions; access to traditional healers (Healers-In-Residence); access to financial or practical support (meal delivery, mutual aid funds)
Strategize with and support people inside to get out and get free as quickly as possible; provide 1:1 peer support and advocacy while people are inside; visit when able in-person
Inform people of their rights, help folks prepare medical/health care proxies, Psychiatric Advance Directives and crisis documents
Connect people with patient advocates and attorneys through our internal database
Access to emergency stipends and funds to help access baseline safety and meet needs
Lead Healing Justice clinics for those who have experienced harm at the hands of the psych system (Psychiatric Survivor Clinic)

Community Mutual Aid Support Funds

Since 2020, Project LETS has directly redistributed over $80,000 through our Psychiatric Survivor Fund, Black Healing Fund, Anti-Carceral Safety Fund, and Community Survival Fund.

We know that making no-strings-attached direct payments to our community members is life saving work, and has the potential to be more impactful than many other mental health interventions.

We have helped support folks returning from prisons and psychiatric incarceration, houseless folks, folks who can't access medications or mobility devices, parents and caregivers, and folks in many types of vulnerable situations.

In order to keep funding our community members with these $250 stipends and doing this important work, we need your help. We have a large network and community of folks who need financial support, and turn to Project LETS for help. In addition to our peer support and advocacy services, political education and organizing work, we believe that economic justice is central to Disability Justice and Mad liberation.

Youth Peer Mental Health Advocate Program

In 2023, Project LETS supported a democratic, youth-led voting process in 02908 and 02909 (two zip-codes in Providence, Rhode Island). We regularly met with Providence youth to co-design possibilities of change, and young people in the community had the opportunity to vote on where they most wanted to see change and funding allocated. One of the top priorities voted for was a Youth Peer Mental Health Advocate Program, and One Neighborhood Builders contracted with Project LETS to design and facilitate the program, in deep partnership and collaboration with youth.

With this grant, we trained close to 60 high school students (98% Black and Brown students) in 8-week bilingual Spanish/English cohorts. Using our anti-carceral mental health curriculum (grounded in Disability Justice), students learned about liberation psychology, created crisis/safety zines, and made herbal bath soaks using culturally relevant, locally sourced plants. These training sessions offered youth the tools to transform how mental health is understood and addressed, shifting power back into our people’s hands and disrupting the colonial roots of ableism and sanism in our healing spaces.

Please share widely with your networks. Project LETS has always been primarily funded and supported by our community members. If you believe in this work, please help us continue providing these critical services and offerings. ❤️‍🔥

Gestures of Gratitude

Every contribution is an act of solidarity. To honor your support, we’re offering small gifts rooted in community, creativity, and care. When you make your contribution, please make sure you share your mailing address!

Project LETS Tax Information:
EIN 46-3381454

Support Project LETS & Anti-Carceral Mental Health Care

Team Members