Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida — Who We Are

Award-Winning Advocates for Mental Health Human Rights

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida (CCHR FL) is the award-winning Florida chapter of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), an international nonprofit mental health watchdog with chapters around the world. For more than three decades in Florida, CCHR FL has stood at the forefront of the fight to expose fraud and abuse in the mental health industry while driving real, lasting legislative change that protects the rights of children, families, and individuals in crisis.

Since 2016 alone, CCHR FL has helped to pass over 50 bills amending Florida law to provide greater protections for children, families, and people in crisis. That record of results, combined with a communications and advocacy strategy that has reached tens of millions of Floridians, earned CCHR FL the prestigious PRNEWS Platinum Award for Government Relations in 2022 and recognition as a finalist for the same award in 2023. To date, CCHR FL has received 11 awards for its work to protect mental health human rights.

Our Mission: Expose Abuse. Create Change.

CCHR FL is a nonpolitical, nonreligious, nonprofit organization dedicated to two equally important goals: exposing psychiatric fraud and abuse, and enacting meaningful patient and consumer protections that make a measurable difference in people’s lives.

On the investigative front, the Florida chapter has filed thousands of complaints and has had investigations launched by state agencies into psychiatric facilities and practitioners operating outside the law. The organization has also secured the safe release of over 1,700 people from illegal Baker Acts since 2015.

On the legislative front, CCHR FL has developed proven strategies; combining media campaigns, grassroots mobilization, and direct legislative engagement, to turn public awareness into action. The results speak for themselves: the number of people involuntarily committed under Florida’s Baker Act declined for three consecutive years following CCHR FL’s sustained campaign. In 2021, that campaign culminated in the passage of Florida’s Parents’ Bill of Rights, a landmark law that restored parental authority in mental health decision-making for their children.

The Baker Act & Parental Rights

Florida’s mental health law, known as the Baker Act, is responsible for over 200,000 involuntary psychiatric examinations each year. According to the most recent state data, more than 36,000 of those examinations involved children with over 4,000 of those children under the age of 10. Many parents only learn their child has been taken into custody after the fact, making the Baker Act one of the most significant threats to parental rights in Florida.

CCHR FL has made it a priority to change that. The chapter has worked directly with law enforcement agencies and school districts across the state to implement internal policies requiring parental notification before a Baker Act is initiated. CCHR FL also makes a free eBook on parental rights available to any Florida family seeking to understand their legal protections.

About CCHR

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) is an international nonprofit mental health watchdog with chapters the world over. Co-founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus Dr. Thomas Szasz at a time when patients were being warehoused in institutions and stripped of all constitutional, civil and human rights, CCHR is responsible for helping to enact hundreds of laws worldwide protecting individuals from abusive or coercive practices.

About Diane Stein | President, CCHR Florida

Diane Stein is the President of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida, a position she has held since October 2015. Based in Clearwater, Florida, she is widely recognized as one of the state’s leading experts on mental health human rights, involuntary psychiatric examination, and parental rights under Florida’s Baker Act.

Certified on the Baker Act through the Florida Department of Children and Families, Diane is a sought-after voice in both the media and legislative arenas. She has been consulted by some of the nation’s most prominent journalists and outlets; including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and television news stations across Florida, on stories examining Baker Act abuse, child psychiatric holds, parental rights, and the dangerous side effects of psychiatric medication. She has served as a Newsweek Expert, contributing published columns on mental health policy, coercive psychiatry, and the rights of parents and children.

Under Diane’s leadership, CCHR FL developed and executed the multi-year communications campaign that earned the 2022 PRNEWS Platinum Award for Government Relations, the first such honor in the organization’s Florida history. Her strategy combined grassroots organizing, social media outreach, media placements, and direct legislative engagement to reach tens of millions of Floridians and assisted in the production of concrete legislative victories, including the passage of the Parents’ Bill of Rights and Baker Act parental notification requirements.

A compelling and experienced public speaker, Diane has addressed audiences on topics ranging from the rights of individuals under involuntary psychiatric examination to the over-prescription of psychiatric drugs in children. Diane’s guiding philosophy is straightforward: “Our mission is to restore and secure basic freedoms and rights — especially for our next generation, our leaders of tomorrow.”