Vicki Cottrel: An advocate's advocate

Vicki Cottrell, executive director of the Utah chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, was the advocate's advocate. She could embrace an individual struggling with mental illness. She could also lobby legislators and other policymakers for a mental health court, mental health insurance parity or a law to help families get care for mentally ill relatives who have resisted treatment.

On Wednesday, Utah lost this tireless champion. Cottrell, 58, died in a traffic accident in Sardine Canyon. She was en route to Logan for a speaking engagement when her sports-utility vehicle spun out of control on slushy roads and struck an oncoming SUV.

Cottrell didn't set out to be an advocate. She earned a handsome living in computer-software sales but got involved in advocacy work because one of her daughters suffers from schizophrenia.

She carried a message of hope and understanding to many venues. She encouraged others to share their experiences with mental illness to help educate and to further certain causes. During the debate over mental health insurance parity, for instance, Cottrell persuaded former University of Utah President Chase Peterson to discuss his experiences with a panic disorder.

Seemingly, Cottrell most cherished the role of teacher. She ran support groups, held press briefings and met with policymakers and editorial boards to further Utahns' understanding of key issues and mental illness in general.

She defended mentally ill people who had become involved in the criminal justice system. They included accused Elizabeth Smart kidnapper Wanda Barzee, who was a long-time family friend. On such occasions, Cottrell was quick to remind the community that people with untreated mental illness are far more likely to be victimized than to harm others.

Much of Cottrell's legacy is codified in the Utah code, training manuals and in the personal achievements of people she assisted over the years. While many struggle to imagine a world without Cottrell to advocate on their behalf, her own words, excerpted from a May 29, 2004, letter to the Deseret Morning News Readers' Forum, sum up her core message about mental illness: "There is disease, there is hope and there is help."

There is, indeed, thanks to the tireless work of Vicki Cottrell.