American Mental Health Foundation

The American Mental Health Foundation (AMHF) is a charitable not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization (NGO) which focuses on providing mental health care.

History
AMHF was organized in 1924 and incorporated in New York State on December 31, 1954.

Contemporary activities
From 2012 to 2014, AMHF responded to a need, noted by Paul Gionfriddo, for the screening of several thousand youth in a county-wide catchment area. The organization collaborated with Astor Services for Children & Families to identify approximately fifteen at-risk individuals who would receive a palliative prevention treatment.

In the summer of 2014, AMHF embarked on a research project with Pearson Assessment to measure older individuals within the serious to profound range of intellectual disabilities for behavioral changes. Such a test would be in the mode of the existing Wechsler, Vineland, and Bayley Scales and have wide-ranging applications. As of 2024, AMHF awaits further funding to continue. The findings of the AMHF 2-year study with Astor Services for Children & Families were issued in April 2016.

On April 10, 2016, in a letter published by the New York Times, Evander Lomke of AMHF rebutted the medical practice of "growth attenuation" among young people with serious disabilities. In the same month, AMHF issued a monograph describing their two years of collaborative research with Astor Services for Children & Families regarding early signs of schizophrenia and other psychoses, and options for palliation or prevention. On March 27, 2017, Lomke placed an op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle on AMHF's behalf, addressing the psychological dimensions of coping with fear, anxiety and social stress, and terrorism.

Select scholarly and professional publications

 * Flannery, R. B. Jr. (1998, 2012). The Assaulted Staff Program (ASAP).
 * Flannery, R. B. Jr. (2016). Violence: Why People Do Bad Things, with Strategies to Reduce that Risk.
 * Flannery, R. B. Jr. (2017). Coping with Anxiety in an Age of Terrorism
 * Flannery, R. B. Jr. (2022). Preventing Youth Violence Before It Begins
 * Gavin, J. H., Quick, J. C., and Gavin, D. J. (2013). Live Your Dreams, Change the World: The Psychology of Personal Fulfillment for Women.
 * Kellerman, H. (2012). Personality: How It Forms.
 * Kellerman, H. (2016). There's No Handle on My Door: Stories of Mental Patients in Mental Hospitals.
 * Kellerman, H. (2018). Psychotherapeutic Traction: Uncovering the Patient's Basic Wish and Power-Theme
 * Kellerman, H. (2021). The Origin of Language
 * Mary Nichols, Suzanne Button, Katherine Hoople, and Laura Lappan (2016). Early Identification, Palliative Care, and Prevention of Psychotic Disorders in Children and Youth (monograph of AMHF 2-year study).