Seven Minutes a Day
I've been living through mental health reform for 4 years now in the state of North Carolina. The old public mental health system's been converted into a public/private hybrid that walks like a state bureaucracy and quacks like a state bureaucracy. The reform's stated intentions were to lower costs, increase competition and client choice, and improve quality through a business mentality. Instead we've seen big public agencies go private and subsume other public agencies. We've seen red tape grow thicker and longer. We've seen the entity that administers state dollars struggle through poor management, broken systems, and outright denial. It's been a mess.
I got tired of wringing my hands over the whole situation and got on board with the one private agency that's successfully negotiated the mental health reform tsunami. Through sheer boldness and tenacity, the leaders in this agency have worked tirelessly to get paid for the work we've performed. The state continues down a path that leads right back where they started...but with less money than when they started there.
Rather than sit back and simply watch and groan as bureaucracy after bureaucracy ate away at the funds necessary to meet the needs of western North Carolina's citizens, I decided to channel that energy into something productive. I started writing about political topics on another blog, attending informational meetings and learning what I could about the mechanics of the systems that continue to repeat the same mistakes. I began advocating for legislation that might move our profession and our mental health systems in the right direction. Here's what I've learned so far:
1. It feels great to call a Congressperson's office to advocate for or against a piece of legislation. They work for me. I am the public they serve, and they're obligated to hear me out.
2. One phone call, no matter how impassioned, will not turn the tide of events. A lone opinion won't sway a legislator one way or the other. This rule changes if the one call is from a big donor to the legislator's campaign or is a valued friend.
3. Several phone calls from different people can change the vote of a legislator.
4. Letters and emails are effective if (a) they're not form letters; (b) they're all addressed from within the legislators constituency; and (c)they're in sufficient numbers.
5. Staffers at your legislators office will get to know you if you give them the chance. Even if they don't agree with you, they will still like you if you are polite, consistent, and genuine.
6. It only takes about seven minutes a day to advocate for yourself, your profession, and your clients.
Seven minutes a day. Whether it's making a phone call, writing a letter, sending an email, educating an influential person in your local coffee shop, your seven minutes can add another voice to the growing chorus of those who believe that it is our job as a nation to care for the most vulnerable among us.
If you're a manager, urge your employees to use seven minutes a day to advocate for continued Medicaid benefits for the needy. If you're a therapist, take seven minutes to advocate for mental health parity in insurance claims. If you're a person who uses mental health services, use your seven minutes to call your representative to tell him what you used the mental health system for today. There's no one who can't be a part of this growing movement to advocacy for the mental health professions.
Use Counseling Policy Blog's sidebar to find an organization you'd like to receive legislative alerts from. Use the Congress.org link to find contact info for your representatives. Let me know, by comment or email, how it's going and how I might help.
Seven Minutes A Day.
posted by Gordon D. Smith, LPC @ 10.5.05
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