Nancy Carter has worked tirelessly as a consumer, family member, teacher and community advocate in the Los Angeles area for over two decades. She readily shares her personal story of the challenges of living with mental illness and the obstacles she’s overcome along the way. She has established herself as a knowledgeable consultant in the areas of family / community engagement, addressing mental health challenges facing persons in jails, and has collaborated with mental health providers to improve their working relationships with the families of persons with mental illness. She continues to educate and train nationally and internationally and is widely recognized as the ‘go to’ person when mental illness is on the agenda. Her work over her lifetime is exactly what we need to move the needle in our collective understanding of the importance of consumer leadership in transforming the mental health system.
— Dr. Altha Stewart, Past President of American Psychiatric Association
Nancy Carter, you saved my sanity. God bless you.
— Bebe Moore Campbell
I am a psychotherapist and have been in practice for over thirty years. I have known Nancy Carter since we worked together at the United Nations many years ago. She is one of the most gifted people I know. Her gifts are many. She has a sparkling intellect with a sense of humor to match. She is able to see the big picture as well as the details in a situation, enabling her to quickly get to the essentials and to know what to do with them. She has impeccable integrity combined with honesty and exquisite sensitivity and tactfulness. She can be a heavy hitter when the situation demands! Nancy is a powerful speaker and story-teller and holds her audience spell-bound. She is connected to a vast network of resources and has an un-erring sense of who to get clients and friends connected with. As if all that were not enough she has a huge heart and a strong compassionate desire to do and find the best in people and make it work for them.
— Jacqueline Hanley, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, Toronto
Nancy Carter’s call to public service is tireless and unconditional. Her work is grounded in her years as an advocate for mental health reform and her analysis of the 100-year history of mental health treatment in the U.S. Ms. Carter’s insights into the challenges and confusion faced by families of loved-ones with brain disorders is not merely academic; it is informed by her real-life experiences dealing with the daunting realities routinely faced by mental health families and clients. Her methods reflect a more personal, more humanized approach. Her guide lines for accessing mental health services are free of double-talk, false hopes and dry statistics, and provide practical solutions for accessing critical services for mental health consumers, as well as strategies for direct political action to reform the broken mental health system. Her lectures are rendered in plain English and are expressed with compassion and empathy. I myself, as well as my family, are beneficiaries of Ms. Carters’ practical and compassionate approach to negotiating the conundrum of mental health service. I am forever in her debt.
— Emory Holmes, writer and journalist
When I thought I was drowning, Ms. Carter threw me a life raft. With nowhere to go, she lifted me up and helped me save my son’s life. Who will take the time to sit in a hospital room or courtroom with you? This woman will. My family owes her a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid.
— Anonymous (father of a son with schizophrenia)
From alcohol to autism, bi-polar to depression, Nancy has been with our family through it all. Her calm approach, sage advice saved us time and money as we searched for answers to the myriad of questions we had along the way. She even sat with us in the emergency room when one of our kids was admitted.
— Anonymous (parent)
At the worst point in my child’s illness someone gave me Nancy’s phone number. At that point she was an anonymous voice on the phone. She was a total stranger telling me, “it’s all going to be ok. I’ve been there and I made it through – you can too”. I was at the end of my rope and thought no one could but SHE did. She sat with me for hours, met my family and helped us work out a plan that so far is working. She seemed to know just what we needed. Grateful is all I can say. Thank you, Nancy Carter.
— Anonymous (mother of a son with dual diagnosis)