NSSC gets $229K BMS grant for mental health family navigation pilot

The National Shattering Silence Coalition received a $229,337 Bristol Myers Squibb grant to launch a 12-month pilot for families of adults with severe mental illness. The program will pair peer navigators with Primary Record’s digital health tool across five states to improve crisis response, care continuity and family support.

Why it matters: - The pilot is aimed at families who often become the main unpaid caregivers during psychiatric crises, when key clinical history is fragmented across emergency departments, police encounters and community providers. - The program is designed to reduce psychiatric readmissions, improve caregiver confidence and speed access to support within 24 hours of referral. - The effort targets a large need: an estimated 14.6 million U.S. adults live with severe mental illness, including schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder and bipolar I disorder.

What happened: - The National Shattering Silence Coalition received a $229,337 corporate giving grant from Bristol Myers Squibb to launch Crisis to Care: A Family Navigation Pilot for Families of Adults with Severe Mental Illness. - The 12-month pilot will serve 50 families across five states. - The launch combines NSSC’s family navigator network with Primary Record’s digital health platform.

The details: - Dedicated Family Navigators with lived experience will be recruited from NSSC’s network of more than 1,200 families. - Navigators are expected to respond within 24 hours of referral. - Support will cover pre-crisis planning, emergency room encounters, discharge and 90-day post-hospital continuity. - Primary Record will give families access to a secure app to organize, collaborate on and share medical information in one place. - The platform will include NSSC’s severe mental illness guides and state-specific navigation resources. - The app will generate shareable QR-code summaries for emergency personnel and clinical teams. - The grant will also fund an independent process and impact evaluation of the pilot. - NSSC represents more than 1,200 families, clinicians and lived-experience advocates across 31 states. - NSSC says it works to address systemic neglect and improve humane, accountable medical care for people living with severe mental illness. - Primary Record is a nurse-led, family-centered health information platform for patients, caregivers and community care teams. - Primary Record says its model is enabled by the 21st Century Cures Act, which allows patients to direct their health data to an app of their choice.

Between the lines: - The grant signals rising attention to the handoff between crisis care and long-term follow-up, where families often lose access to usable information. - Pairing peer navigation with a shared digital record suggests a push toward more coordinated care without waiting for a full system overhaul. - The pilot’s state-specific resources and QR summaries are meant to make the model easier to use in urgent settings, where time and information gaps are biggest.

What's next: - NSSC will roll out the pilot in five states over the next 12 months. - Families will begin receiving navigator support and access to the Primary Record platform as referrals come in. - The independent evaluation will measure process and impact outcomes from the pilot. - NSSC and Primary Record will use the pilot to test whether the model can support sustained care continuity after psychiatric hospitalization.

The bottom line: - Bristol Myers Squibb is funding a practical experiment in how families can be better equipped to navigate severe mental illness crises and the transition back into care.