Treatment Advocacy Center Names Sabah Muhammad as Inaugural DJ Jaffe Advocate
March 8, 2021
MEDIA CONTACT:
Geoffrey Melada, Director of Communications
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Treatment Advocacy Center is excited to announce that Legislative and Policy Counsel Sabah Muhammad will serve as its inaugural DJ Jaffe advocate. 
Shortly after the death of former board member and friend DJ Jaffe last August, Treatment Advocacy Center announced its intention to create a new advocacy position to honor Jaffe’s legacy as a tireless mental health advocate and champion for families.
“I’m so honored to accept this new role where I plan to expand TAC’s outreach and be for so many people who DJ Jaffe was for me,” Muhammad said. “DJ let me know that I was heard and that my family was not alone. I learned that everyday advocacy is a lifestyle. Living with severe mental illness can be harrowing. I want all families to know that our stories matter, especially Black families.”
Muhammad, a licensed attorney and former Georgia public defender, joined Treatment Advocacy Center in 2019 as legislative and policy counsel, where she works to improve civil commitment laws and to promote evidence-based policies at the state and federal level that positively affect those with severe mental illness. Muhammad will assume her new role, effective immediately.
This new position will allow Treatment Advocacy Center to better organize and execute grassroots advocacy in specific communities in need of better outreach and representation in the advocacy world, creating direct lines of communication with local advocates who are working to better the lives of individuals with and affected by severe mental illness.
In her new role, Muhammad plans to work across departments to coordinate education and outreach campaigns in order to help Treatment Advocacy Center better serve individuals and families of color affected by severe mental illness.
The DJ Jaffe advocate position is endowed by Treatment Advocacy Center founder Dr. E. Fuller Torrey and wife Barbara Torrey.
“I’m so pleased that Sabah Muhammad will serve as the inaugural DJ Jaffe advocate at the Treatment Advocacy Center,” Dr. E. Fuller Torrey said. “Sabah came to the Treatment Advocacy Center through her personal relationship to DJ, and I know that my late friend would be proud and honored that she will perform outreach to families of color affected by severe mental illness in this new role designed to carry on his legacy of grassroots mental health advocacy.”
A former Madison Avenue advertising executive turned crusader for the mentally ill, Jaffe played a critical role in the passage of Kendra’s Law in New York, which authorizes courts to order outpatient psychiatric treatment for people who pose a danger to themselves or others. The law became a model for assisted outpatient treatment programs across the country. Dr. E. Fuller Torrey described Jaffe as “the single most effective advocate I worked with.”
“Sabah approaches everything she does with empathy and heart. I can’t think of anyone better suited to serve in this role,” said Lisa Dailey, Treatment Advocacy Center’s acting executive director.
“She will uplift the voices of individuals and families struggling with severe mental illness by seeking and listening to their experiences in all of their complexity, but most importantly by providing a platform to tell these stories. If we want to truly solve problems, our work must be informed by as many voices as possible. This is the best way to honor DJ, whose compassion for the suffering of families failed by our broken treatment system knew no bounds.”
Those interested in financially supporting the new position can donate to the DJ Jaffe Advocacy Memorial Fund here.
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The Treatment Advocacy Center is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating barriers to the timely and effective treatment of severe mental illness by promoting laws, policies and practices for the delivery of psychiatric care and supporting the development of innovative treatments for and research into the causes of severe and persistent psychiatric illnesses, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
