Signature Block Birthday Party Event Made Easy

Signature block birthday party event

thank you all for joining our session today becoming a mental health advocate for mental health reform today is a special day martin luther king day a day of service my name is dr ben miller i'm the cso chief strategy officer for wellbeing trust a national foundation that focuses on advancing the mental social and spiritual health of the nation as well as the advisory board chair of inseparable a new national policy organization committed to advancing robust policy on mentor health our two organizations wellbeing trust and inseparable came together in partnership with many of our friends who we'll let you hear from in just a minute to offer up a training that we felt was needed and it's something we hope today you enjoy as another way to serve as dr martin luther king said everyone can be great because everyone can serve there's power in service and can not only benefit the person doing the serving but the person receiving the service it's my honor today to be able to kick off today's session really a service opportunity of sorts on mental health and advocacy we often think of policy and advocacy as someone else's responsibility we sometimes think it could be too complicated too confusing and it actually can be sometimes however without the power of your voice oftentimes policy gets made in ways that may not necessarily be in the best interest of you or the issues you care about and today is about that it's about you it's about mental health and it's about service and what a time to talk about service and mental health our previous and likely former our previous and likely incoming surgeon general dr vivek murthy wrote so about this so eloquently where service is a form of human connection that reminds us of our value and purpose in life giving and receiving both strengthens our social bonds checking on a neighbor seeking advice even just offering a smile to a stranger six feet away all can make us stronger end quote i don't think that dr murthy knew when he wrote this in his book together that the six feet would become almost a daily challenge for us today yet here we are in an almost perpetual state of six feet away experiencing what it's like to lose a sense of normalcy that we once had prior to covet and the data show our struggles with increases in depression anxiety drug overdose deaths and overall stress this pandemic has brought mental health to the forefront of all of our lives but this is a gentle reminder that prior to the pandemic we were not doing so great with our nation's mental health either we were losing more lives to preventable causes than ever before and the nominal investment in mental health didn't really allow us allow for us to talk about anything other than keeping the lights on we need more if we want to radically reform what's needed for mental health people had to wait too long to find care if they could find care at all insurance companies often denied much needed care or forced people to pay out of pocket and while our culture has become more open to talking about mental health there remains a stigma attached to it that's less and less social but remains entrenched structurally in fact last year viacom cbs and wellbeing trust partnered with the beninson strategy group to conduct an online survey of americans and to really understand their attitudes towards mental health care and we found that voters across all party lines wanted their representatives in congress to come together to make mental health care more available and affordable for all americans as a key part of addressing this pandemic when asked whether elected officials should be focusing more or less on mental health more than 9 in ten voters in both parties said more more change has been incremental which has not kept up with the profiling dem profound demand for more approaches to make it easier for us to get the help we need for our country to truly tackle these complex deeply rooted problems we need to transform fragmented and disjointed clinical and community systems and bring them together in more integrated ways some of the trends we've seen on deaths from substance misuse and suicide are symptoms of broader problems if we treat only the symptoms more and more people will be at risk and die needlessly so this is what we're going to do today it's all about us doing something big together it's about you our session today is about why advocacy is important what it looks like and how to do it we know that people are coming in at different levels of experience we're aware of that we might have seasoned pros and brand new folks to to the field and in doing so it's our way to give us a new opportunity to talk about what's not working to think bigger to consider ways that we can create an approach to mental health care that works for us all but to do that to have policy take action on our vision we must advocate and what better way to provide service to our families our communities today on this day of service than to learn how to do just that so to start our time together it's my great privilege to introduce you to our first speaker former congressman patrick kennedy as many of you know during his time in congress patrick kennedy didn't just write policy he wrote some of the most seminal policy for mental health and addiction our country has ever seen he was the lead author of the landmark mental health parity and addiction equity act which many of you i probably know requires that health insurers cover treatment for mental health and substance use disorders the same as illnesses of the body he is the founder of the kennedy forum which helps unite advocates policymakers and businesses all in service to advancing practices and policies in mental health and addiction and while i could spend hours talking about how wonderful patrick is and the various committees and awards he's received i will only just kind of stop here and turn it over to him and let him tell you all the great things that he's doing and why it really matters for us to get involved in mental health and advocacy so patrick i'm going to turn it over to you can you tell us a little bit about this moment and why service is a solution to so many problems and how can we take actionable mental health and why advocacy is everyone's responsibility well thank you ben and and lashawn and kavita um for your tremendous advocacy um wellbeing trust has has really advanced um advocacy for all those who are listening well-being trust has partnered with both us at the kennedy forum university of pennsylvania on two guides for advocates to refer to in order to know kind of what areas they might want to you know push in terms of changes in public policy so you've given us the tools ben and thank you for that um i became uh the number one uh sponsor of parity the first signature on this bill that frank frankly just covers illnesses of the brain not a revolutionary concept but of course it wasn't passed until 2008 and and i might add it wasn't uh passed because we woke up in 2008 and said oh wouldn't it be good to cover mental illnesses it was passed in 2008 by a that sausage making process you hear about in congress in other words congress didn't even know they were passing the parity law when we passed it they were passing yes the parity law h.r 1424 but what people didn't know that the underlying bill was parity was because our great friend senator chris dodd who was chairman of the banking committee decided to write the whole 700 billion dollar toxic asset relief program the otherwise known as the economic stabilization act into our parity law to allow it to pass um so when people passed it and voted for it and when president bush signed into the law i challenge that many congressmen to actually know that the underlying bill was guaranteeing a coverage for depression alcoholism addiction and mental illness i'm only saying this to make the point that advocacy has been anemic at best however this uh terrible crisis of covet is really not just a crisis for uh of a viral pandemic it's a mental health and spiritual crisis the the isolation then that you referred to at the outset really has precipitated an even worse mental health crisis understanding as you pointed out we already had an epidemic of overdoses and suicide and this i think really but by everyone's estimate is going to compound that um unaddressed um public health crisis beneath uh the covid crisis i would say um for all those who are here on dr king's uh birthday you know he said famously that of all forms of injustice injustice and health care is the most shocking and perhaps if he were alive today he would say of all forms of health care and justice the injustice in mental health and addiction is the most shocking because mental health and addiction as we all know is not treated as part of health care and that is why our advocacy work needs to be uh multi-faceted and i know you're going to have kavita take you through some policy actions that we can uh work on and as i said wellbeing trust has laid these out and lashawn can give you some terrific organizations to be part of but for those of you who like me are in recovery service is not something altruistic it's not a selfless act it's actually a very selfish type of act because it's in giving to others that we lose ourselves and in losing our own um self-centeredness we become free of that terrible angst that often paralyzes our own lives and and the real beauty in the solution to this epidemic is that we can repurpose all of those who are now suffering if we are uh really thoughtful and mindful about bringing them in and making them understand that their suffering is not in vain they can turn their own life's experiences into lessons to help others who have yet to obtain recovery and as we know in recovery recovery is a spiritual mission it and frankly on this dr king's birthday it's it's helpful to remember that the way dr king won the civil rights battle was because it became a spiritual battle started in the churches with the fundamental belief that we were all god's children and that human dignity at all levels needed to be respected and it was from that basic belief in non-violence and love for one another and this and the spark of divinity that is within each of us that that non-violent movement that transformed this country which we celebrate today was born we can take a page from dr king and we can say to ourselves for those of you who are like me who grew up after the great civil rights fights after uh the great anti-war battles after uh the great uh expansion of rights for those uh in the lgbtq community for gender rights and so forth um we have an opportunity to take on the mantle of a new kind of civil rights fight um it's for integration of mental health and addiction into both health care and into all facets of our society so that we no longer criminalize mental health we no longer marginalize those who are suffering from these illnesses and we no longer uh tolerate a system that would treat our loved ones as second-class citizens now with this i'd like to turn it over to kavita thank you kavita for all of your inspirational leadership in this space and my father absolutely uh adored you how how brilliant you were how instrumental you were in helping him write national public policy and health care and and how proud he would be uh to see how much you've done uh in the course of your life uh having gotten a real fundamental start in his office and he was so proud of how many people uh he was able uh to bring into washington who were the best and brightest and and you are certainly amongst those so thank you ben and i'll turn it back to you guys thanks so much patrick and we appreciate your leadership your insights and the reminders of the importance of service and the roles that we can play in making a difference you're a tremendous example of this uh we know you have a lot of events today so well thank you for joining us and uh and challenging us to think bigger and take bolder action so be well my friend thank you um and so now let's turn to someone who like patrick just did already for kavita really doesn't need an introduction uh dr kavita patel is currently a primary care doc in washington dc uh she's also a non-resident fellow at brookings institute um she's on a lot of really important titles as patrick alluded to but including beaming the previously a previous director for policy um of policy for the white house under president obama and a senior advisor to patrick's father uh senator kennedy kavita is a dear friend and has forgotten more about policy especially complicated policies like those found in medicare than some of us will ever know um so kavita patrick set you up beautifully but just tell us a little bit about what's going on in your world what you think why advocacy matters for advancing policy and maybe before we get to lashawn talk a little bit about tactics or any advice on what you think might help us move the needle for mental health yeah thank you and what a generous um introduction by both of you i just want to thank the well-being trust inseparable and all the people who are on uh the zoom today and and i still think of him as representative kennedy it's gonna be hard to get that out of my head because he always will be to me um he's right i learned anything i know about advocacy from the greatest senator edward m kennedy who taught us that uh that our jobs were really to work in the interest of the american people and i think that matters i was listening to a a ted talk last night uh from the three co-founders of the black lives movement matters and one of them alicia garza who kind of had the viral facebook post that ended up kind of being the genesis of like the phrase black lives matter said something that um you know resonates with me and i just want everyone hopefully to kind of see it and resonate with you is that leadership matters uh but the real kind of sign of leadership is not necessarily kind of the person that steps forward but the people who kind of carry with them every day and in small ways kind of making a difference and not necessarily always who's kind of on you know the person on stage at the podium you know four of us on a zoom might seem like we're kind of leaders but our true job is to help everybody feel like they have their place on the stage at the podium because you do and i think that resonates with me just because when i worked for senator kennedy or any public service kind of time in my life it was never about me it was always and it was never about him it was always about kind of what's the best thing for the american people so i felt very i feel very strongly about that i want to offer ben some very um i'll give very candid remarks i worked as a staffer in the senate office and i'm a physician as you mentioned so i see it from kind of both sides i'll just identify ultimately what i learned kind of not just on yours kind of in the hill and in government but i think i've seen it now that i'm in the delivery side ultimately what policymakers want is something that they can help they they need that they need the message combined with kind of the underlying like facts on the ground so to speak to make it clear to people what the point of that policy is and i'll give you a concrete example all by the way with the most valuable don't worry what anybody tells you the most valuable commodity in government on the hill is time so anything you can do to help leverage that most valuable commodity which is time and also offer something that's concrete to these legislators are exactly what they need and i think ultimately what we have to do as advocates is take what we know which most of us are kind of subject matter experts so we know too much and you have to remember that we might be experts in a field everybody else is a generalist so we need to be able to translate expertise pair it with what i call real people stories um in the white house and the obama white house we would refer to them as rp's real people we would always ask like what do the rps think and i didn't really process what that was but what do real people think so i had to find this fine balance between that story that family that picture senator kennedy did it brilliantly we would have a story about a child who died because he didn't have dental access for example an adult who committed suicide because we did not have mental health parity but he would use that story to then talk about the really kind of important policy points we needed to add we needed to really understand what parity meant we needed to add benefits into the medicare and medicaid program for mental health we needed to add in the case of dental we needed to add a dental benefit into the chip the children's health insurance program which he helped start those were tools and we went to advocates oftentimes as policy makers we would go to advocates and say i need you to help us figure out how to sell this policy so that republicans will do it or so that blank will do it or the house will do it and and that's an opportunity sometimes you feel as an advocate like i'm just being used no that's an opportunity you've got a captive audience you can do it reactively and be able to and work with them remembering times of the essence anything that you can offer in terms of concrete kind of language you don't have to be a lawyer you don't have to be a senate staffer or former senate staffer but they need things that are very simple and it's because their job my job used to be to take that and turn it into the legislative language um i also want to offer write a new era always with social media social media can be incredibly helpful and it might not be helpful in certain instances so there might be a reaction to have a grassroots movement like black lives matter kind of bubble up into policy that's incredibly important but we need to think about also then how to have a cycle so that policies which might not seem like the top of mind and let's use right now as an example cove everything is about kovatkovic kovidkovid and everything around mental health has been whether it's right or wrong put under kind of a coveted lens and that can be frustrating and i'm on twitter ben's on twitter um sometimes we're trying to elevate some of those mental health issues but it can be hard when all of twitter is on fire all the time about covid today it's the vaccine distribution um next month it'll be about something else so use the social media to acknowledge kind of where we are but also remember that when you're working with policy makers they don't necessarily respond to something that went viral on twitter they're going to respond to how you can help mobilize an audience maybe through social media to support their policies on the hill to support their regulatory actions in the executive branch and i will say that uh the other thing i learned is how much and i think lashawn is going to do an incredible job um to try to teach us what we can and can't do and understanding kind of how the executive branch and legislative branch work but i think that key there is also using these moments and in relationships matter in those moments to respond and then i'll just close ben i just wanna i'm gonna i'm gonna be off camera but i'm gonna be around and maybe we can do some q a i really feel strongly like you have to kind of i have to do this every single day by the way because i get up i won't be i won't lie i've i've spent a lot of my time trying to integrate behavioral health into primary care sometimes successfully sometimes unsuccessfully and i get really depressed at the progress i have not made and i think one you have to acknowledge that and be okay with it but then two you have to think about your purpose i have now gotten comfortable articulating that my purpose is to absolutely make sure that when i leave this earth that we have a better mental health care system and we don't call it a mental health care system that is just part of our system i want that to be my why and as an advocate as an individual as an organization try to hone in on what's your why it'll keep you going because there are probably 98 of my days are full on rejections emails that don't get answered calls that don't get returned and it can be hard so i'm speaking to a lot of you who are here for a day of service service yourselves by reflecting on why this matters and and it does matter no matter who you are even that like handwritten note that you know help to compel someone to come forward and get help or offer assistance matters and think about kind of what motivates you so um i'm really i really think that again i i think this is a topic i could talk about all day every day but i i really want to thank you know the group for bringing this together and hopefully this is the start of many conversations that can offer service to the american people and beyond so then i'll i'm going to be here and i'm excited to listen and learn thanks so much kavita um i i love that notion that it's never about us it's about others you and patrick have offered this inspiring call to action i think we all must embrace i especially love you calling out what policymakers want that the message combined with the facts that's so important i think it's going to be one of the skills that we will talk about in a minute and i also finally appreciate you lifting up the commodity of time folks are very busy and so sometimes being able to really use that to our advantage is important um and so thank you for closing with your why uh we will all be better if we can achieve that vision that you're working towards too so thank you all right so for our training today i'm going to turn it over to lashon francis lashon has many things but i like to think of her as one of the most savvy policy operatives i know uh lashawn is currently the associate director of health collaboration at children now uh prior to joining joining children now the sean is an associate director at the california medical association and she's done the deep end wonky stuff like working with the legislative analyst office so she can talk about this from all different levels so when we were thinking today about who could come in and offer a training for our davis service i could think of nobody better than lashawn so lashon thank you for your your service to us today by helping us understand this a little bit better and i'll turn it over to you thanks so much ben that was such a generous introduction but i am really really excited to talk about this today i feel as if i talk about this very often with folks just in everyday conversation and you know the the idea of being an advocate i think sometimes feels daunting to folks and it's unreachable but my hope with today's conversation is that anyone can be an advocate you don't need a law degree you don't need masters you don't need to be a physician you can really get involved in understanding problems and identifying solutions so that's what i hope to spend some time talking about and then maybe there'll be some time at the end where we can just found some ideas uh back and forth and maybe get to question the answer next slide so i know that today is the day that we're focusing on celebrating mlk and you know in in service to to him and his life and his life's work i really really enjoy this quote mlk day has always been looked at as a day of service and this is a quote from one of his last sermons that he gave at ebenezer baptist church in 1968 and he said everybody can be great because everybody can serve you don't have to have a college degree to serve you don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve you only need a heart full of grace a soul generated by love i think if you're starting there you're starting from a great place next slide so here's the run of show for today we're going to briefly talk about what advocacy is we're going to go through the steps necessary to engage in advocacy efforts like defining the problem like coalition building they're going to leave some time for examples from the fields and i hope to also leave you with some mental health networks and resources you know generally speaking i think you'll find that advocacy across the board isn't much different depending on regardless of your issue area but i do think there's some things that are unique to mental health and we'll talk about what those things might be next slide please very simply advocacy is the act of supporting defending or arguing for a specific cause or issue with the intent of bringing about change now most people are used to being advocates in their everyday lives you might advocate for your child at school you might advocate for yourself in the doctor's office right but the advocacy that we're really going to be talking about today is about implementing policy change right so what laws rules regulations policies and practices need to be changed that could be on the local level on the state level on the national level it's kind of the same process with different players so that's the kind of advocacy that i'll be focusing on today to really implement and to think about what skills might be necessary to be a strong advocate next slide understanding the problem and this is a really really big one i see this all the time in mental health right and and this is the problem of advocating for things that no one asked for and i don't know how else to say that but the idea there there's a few things here right um the first is the you know grass roots understanding from communities and from um individuals particularly racial and ethnic communities that really came up with the slogan nothing about us without us and that slogan was really to identify that there were policies that were being introduced that those communities didn't ask for so if you are advocating say on behalf of you know the native american population it's important to talk to those representatives in that community right and have a better understanding of what it is that is needed i remember a time i went to a community meeting some years ago and i went to this community meeting with the intent on learning what the community needed however before i went i was almost i was so sure that i knew what that community needed because i read about the problems right so i spent a good amount of time understanding the issues around food insecurity and access to health coverage and you know the need for better mental health supports in schools and when i got there it was a really humbling experience because the thing that the the parents were talking about the most were the need for street lights and i had never thought about street lights that is not what any of the research told me but it's not to say that what what the what i read wasn't important wasn't to say that they didn't care about food insecurity or health care access but for me it was really a re-education on what they cared about most right so as you're understanding the problem i think it's also good to understand what's most important to this community that i'm here to serve then you can look at what the research says about that issue right so you know the next step for me in that situation would have been to leave there knowing that street lights were the most important issue right and if i'm really here in to be in service of community my next step would have been to do some research on why street lights are so important what do the academics say about you know the importance of street lights and the safety around street fights etc right so really you do need the combination i think what happens sometimes with advocacy is that oftentimes we rely primarily on what the research says and it's not to say that we shouldn't understand the research and and really welcome the research but research sometimes is very limited to what data is available and the interest of the researcher so if you're really trying to understand what communities want and where they define the problem the first place you have to go is to the source next slide identifying solutions very similar thing here right so really understanding not just what you might think is a good you know example or a good response to the problem but hearing you know what folks were saying they they would find to be the most helpful right so i always see this mismatch between the problem and the solution and it's not done intentionally i think what happens is we tend to gravitate towards solutions that we think might be easier to fix right as opposed to solutions that uh the communities actually want or that folks are actually looking for so if i had come away from my community meeting where parents said they wanted street lights and i said you know what it's too hard to convince you know city representatives to pay for street lights how about we just give families flashlights i don't think that they would have thought that was a sufficient response right so really understanding what solution is going to be best by asking folks what it is that you want to see right they actually want polls going up on every block or every other block so that their kids can be safe walking home from school and what does the research say you know is it true that you're safer if you have street lights right and i'm gonna use the streetlight example because it's a very simple example right and i think sometimes when we talk about mental health and we get into issues of parity and we get into issues of payment reform it can get very complicated right but really thinking about what solutions are matching the problem is a skill no matter at what level you're talking about the issue at hand next slide please so after you've identified your problem right and you have thought through your solutions i think the next step really is understanding the field and the field is exactly what it sounds like it's this broad-based land of consumers advocates providers who are all involved with the issue of mental health in some way shape or form right so your first question is going to be who all is talking about mental health and i think what you'll find very quickly is you'll find consumers are talking about mental health physicians and providers and nurses and social workers are talking about mental health teachers etc what are they talking about exactly are they talking about the need for better insurance coverage i know that representative kennedy talked about um parity earlier you know is is the issue that their insurance won't cover something what exactly are they identifying as problems in the field have they done anything on this before right so that's the that's the when when have they done anything right if they have done some work in this you want to know when was this 20 years ago was this five years ago the one matters because what ends up happening is you get to re-evaluate what the field looks like now and whether or not you could be helpful to it let's say there was an attempt to pass legislation last year and you're interested in introducing that same piece of legislation well you're not going to do it if it was just a year ago because you're probably going to have the same players involved who were there a year ago but let's say it was 10 years ago you might have to really evaluate re-evaluate the field about who's there now and whether or not we can make any specific changes right how did they try to make the change right if you're understanding the field you're also understanding what efforts have been done in the past that mirror the problem that i've identified and mirror the solution that i've identified right and you're trying to figure out with your solution who's responsible for that is this something that the city can take care of that the state can take care of or that the federal government takes care of right when we talked about parody with representative kennedy that was clearly a national issue this was something that we needed the federal government to step in on and say there must be parity between physical health and mental health so now that we've got parity solved right and i put that in quotes what you're seeing is sometimes a lack of parity on the state level so then the question becomes who do you now have to advocate to who's your regulatory agency who might not be um ensuring that parity is looking the way it should look on the state level so really understanding what the issue is how you might solve that solution if it's through legislation regulation ballot initiative depending on what state you're in that's a really big thing here in california really understanding where you might make some traction one of my favorite stories um about understanding the field is you know i remember um a certain uh constituent complaining about the mayor and how the mayor wouldn't do anything to better public schools and this was a huge complaint for them and i remember saying yes but the mayor in california isn't responsible for public schools right that's the school board so really understanding who's responsible for what and at what level and depending on where you live and what state you're in you're all going to have different responsibilities in a different structure it gets simpler you know on the national level you have your representatives um you have your senators you have you know the different branches of the three branches of government and that is simplified but on the state and local level it can actually get a little complicated on who's responsible uh for for changing or implementing a particular solution so really again just understanding the field understanding who's been playing in this field who's been successful who hasn't been successful um and where are they now next slide coalition building and you know this one is i would say probably the the most important and i think the first question is what are you building coalition for is are you building a coalition to implement a short-term strategy or a long-term strategy what do i mean by that a short-term strategy could be something like as soon as this initiative is over we're gonna wrap up this coalition and we're never gonna contact them yet right and maybe that is to get a ballot initiative passed a long-term strategy is this is our coalition and we're going to make sure that you know kids in school have access to mental health services anytime they need from k through 12 and there are 10 steps to get there and this is more of a long-term strategy and long-term solution right so really figuring out what are you coalition building for what does your coalition look like is this a coalition that you know is very engaged meaning you know everyone involved you have their phone numbers you can call them to you know do a thing for you or to provide testimony for you or do something in that matter or is this a coalition that's a little bit less involved one that you know you know maybe just interacts through email or social media et cetera so really figuring out who your coalition is and how you'll use your coalition i think is is very very important most places have coalitions already um in play you know depending on where you live and it's always easier to join an existing coalition than to start your own but if you are someplace where there is no coalition around the idea of mental health then you could be the first one to start that and to really get people on board one last thing i'll say about coalition building is i think that sometimes we think your coalition has to involve everyone who does the same thing you do right so if you are um a consumer you might build a a coalition that only has consumers and i think the most important thing particularly around the state of mental health is mental health impacts us no matter where we are so a broad-based coalition actually would be the most successful businesses care if their workers have good mental health right schools care if their teachers staff and students have good mental health physicians care if their patients have good mental health this is really a broad-based thing that doesn't have to be limited to one particular group one thing that i love about the organization that i work for children now is that we have something called the children's movement and this movement says anyone faith-based providers small businesses big businesses people who work with kids individuals can sign on to this network and make requests of the state on how to do better for kids right that is a broad-based coalition of support it's not limited to one kind of group i think those are the most successful when we think about coalition building because that way you have everyone talking in the same voice about one thing next slide communication so and i know that dr patel talked about this very briefly on the power of storytelling and i really can't uh stress this one enough stories are such a good way to get people interested right the problem with storytelling and storytelling itself is not problematic is you can't stop at storytelling right you have to tell the compelling story and then you have to layer it on how this applies to the population that you're trying to help right so there's the individual story and then there's the group change that you're asking for and policies really are about focusing on population change not necessarily on individual change so how does that story how is that sort of reflection of what a group is going through that's how you want to think about your storytelling you don't want to pick a story that's so obscure you know that it's not really representative of what a group of of people or what your students are going through you also simplify the problem i think the important part of communication is you don't real you have to really know who your audience is who are you talking to there are some members senators in california who are very well versed on mental health they are mental health champions i don't need to explain to them the importance of mental health right but you might have some policy makers who are not as well versed on mental health and you do have to take a step back and say why is mental health important what is the problem that i'm seeing in my community here's how i want to fix it and here's why that solution will actually fix the problem right those connecting of the dots are just super super important most most individuals most policy makers might care about mental health but not necessarily see the bigger picture one thing that i also like to do before i speak to anyone is know their history on you know any moves or any policies they've done in the past on mental health did they run a bill last year did they implement some policy change did they sign on to a letter what did they do in this field already because one of the worst experiences is sitting in a room with a policy maker and convincing them to do something and they say oh i did that three years ago right so really knowing your audience know who you're talking to know what they've done in this in the field is going to really help you with communication simplify the problem you know one thing that i did at my uh in a previous life was i worked a lot on payment reform for physicians that can get really complicated and what i would do particularly in my written materials is i would write everything that i knew on a sheet of paper and then i would redline it because most of that information someone didn't need to know they just needed to know the highlights so i'd redline that and really give them a simplified version of what i was talking about if they wanted more detail i could provide the detail but you don't need to start there next slide so what does this all mean what are you leading up to right so you have identified the problem you have identified a solution you built your coalition you figured out how to communicate about this issue but next and i've alluded to some things before but really it can be as simple as just sending an email or a letter you know any time i write a letter i try to have some other groups sign on to it so that the policy maker knows that this is important not just my organization but is important to all of us you can call i mean i know that it's it's a little foreign for folks to call now in the social media age but calling my phone calling your member um saying hey you know you represent my district or i live in this community can also be really really powerful schedule a visit i know policymakers are very very busy and oftentimes you'll be meeting with their staffer but legislative staff administrative staff are very very important to this process because they connect with the member or they connect with the official and relay your concerns so treat those meetings just as importantly as you would someone you know with a big name so schedule a visit meet with their staffer explain the problem identify a solution and try to get buy-in another thing that i love is providing public testimony and public testimony really is just the process of going to a hearing maybe a legislative hearing and and saying what you find to be uh problematic or what you find to be important about the issue at hand right um really really being on record about where you stand is very important because that all gets recorded and that only get all all gets written down somewhere so you want to make sure that your voice is being heard in that way developing relationships with decision makers again i think decision makers is a broad term i think most of us think of decision makers as the folks that you know we check on our ballot box and we put into office and that is true but there are multiple levels of decision makers right so most folks in in the executive branch we don't vote for right with the obvious exceptions um but what happens is you begin to work with some key staff appointed staff for example right so if you've got um you know someone who works at health and human services agency or in california the department of health care services you really want to think about who in those offices who in those departments can make decisions not only make the can make decisions but who in those departments influence our decision makers that's such a huge part of it and i talked about legislative staff earlier but it's just as important when we think about our departments and the staffers in those departments because they're also relaying your concerns to those decision makers so everyone is important everyone really has to hear what you have to say about what changes need to be made patel talked about social media engagement right and you know social media again can be a hit or miss you can it can go very very very well for you or not i don't always believe that social media is a reflection of what folks care about right i mean have you ever tried to get a particular constituency or particular group to engage on social media and it's been very difficult because you know they are working during the day and they cannot you know engage on social media in that way or there might be a gap in knowledge on how to use social media best so it can really help you or not but i wouldn't rely on social media engagement alone next slide yeah so you know i have a very long list of you know what i can i can say our examples but before i even go there i think part of the the issues that we just talked about here the next step would really be thinking about how you measure success right so for most people they pass a bill and then they move on but the reality is for folks like myself who work in the field we have to keep watch is this bill being implemented in the way that we want it to be implemented are there any unintended consequences right um in the issue of parity i know in california even though federal legislation was passed we had some issues here where parity was not being realized in the way that we wanted it to be so that means you have to revisit pieces of legislation right you have to revisit regulation so success can be you know longer than just doing this one thing most of us don't check a box and say okay we got this bill passed and then we've moved on really the bill passing is the first step right and then we want to think about you know how has this played out how has this really impacted the the constituency that i've been trying to impact that is where a lot of the work comes in so i know that bills are you know and legislation tend to be talked about the most right but i always say that your regulations are so important because they are about how people experience these changes which is very different from just simply implementing the legislation you're really creating a construct around how people are going to experience the thing that you want them to experience so really don't want to underestimate the importance of follow-through and the importance of making sure that the work isn't done simply because you got one initiative through you know in in in california i can talk a lot about some of the work that we've done particularly around children's mental health um but you know i i will say that most of uh most of the the work is a reflection also of what needs to happen nationally right i don't i don't think that most of what we do is unique to california or you know even unique to kids um on some level but really understanding that they have that we need to build coalition around important issues one of my um favorite issues has been one around community health workers and in california we have had a legislative champion senator bell for for years thinking about community health workers and thinking about the role they play in supporting mental health community health workers peer supporters people with lived experience supporting those with mental health issues and we worked for years on this issue and you know we had a huge coalition around this issue and almost every advocate was speaking in one voice about the need and importance for community health workers and last year we got a very important piece of legislation past sb 803 around the ability to create a slot for community health workers and an opportunity in space for them to serve um those so that they could have someone to talk to with with lived experience and someone to talk to who was part of the community and that's an initiative that you know i was very proud of to be part of right that was a that's a clear example of a coalition-led effort that was successful the next step now is to see how that's going to be implemented and to make sure that our community health workers have everything that they need to best support communities so you know that that's one example and i'm not sure if um i have enough time to continue but i'll stop there for now um and see if we're going to talk a bit more thank you lashon yeah we've got time for a few questions that i'm going to ask to you and kavita but first of all thank you that was such a gift i loved how you reminded us that mental health impacts us no matter where we are it's so true and it really underscores the reasons that i think you did what you just did and helping us understand how to take action with our advocacy um i think we're all better off because of you helping us see the ways we can get involved so many gems in your presentation and i know people are going to ask this yes we're recording it yes we will put it online so you can share it with your friends and your colleagues but you had so many gyms there there's potency in the power of story with data which is a challenge for us in a massive opportunity and the importance of a red pen i mean who would have thought about that like highlight the sections that you really want people to pay attention to and so thank you for that i really appreciate that so i want to ask you both one question and we'll probably be at our time here so kavita i'm going to come back to you first based on what you just heard from lashon there's a lot of opportunities for each of us to get involved in advocacy these days you're on the front lines of both delivery and policy what gives you hope heading into a new congress and a new administration what are you most worried about and based on maybe this conversation today what ways do you think we as a collective community should be focusing our advocacy attention yeah great i'll be brief i know we are short on time the thing that gives me the most hope is truly the um at least for all things the silver lining if there can be said to be uh some in the pandemic has been a much broader conversation about mental health at the same time i don't want that to somehow sometimes when i see this happen in policy it happens like people talking about access it becomes sanitized in a way where we're like oh yeah mental health pandemic oh yeah mental health twindemic and you just don't process it so coming out of this and lashawn you're so good i wish you could just kind of can that and rinse and repeat on many levels coming out of that i do think that there's going to be an incredible attention on the first hundred days i was looking at the participants we've got superstars who are listening and people are focused on the first hundred days because there's this momentum there's this energy there's this push we should try to think about how to kind of be a part of that wave and offer until sean's point data concrete kind of red lines if you will and then i do think the stories when used appropriately help to solidify how that translates and makes um someone on the other side whether it be a senator or a congressional staffer to say yeah i'm willing to kind of take this forward and that's really the advocacy right it's easy when someone comes to you and says i want to do something just give me some support well maybe not easy i should say that happens often in a town like washington the harder is to switch it and turn on someone when they feel like a new congress new energy new administration is coming and then i'll say the third that's a challenge which even we're navigating is doing it all on zoom we hope to not be doing it on zoom but i will say that sitting down across the table with someone who you ideologically do not agree with but share a cup of coffee with makes a huge difference it was everything that i did to try to make changes we don't have that so we gotta double up on those key skills and metrics that lashawn pointed out to make it effective thanks kavita lashan let me just turn to you on the same question because uh here in kavita i have a feeling that you have an opinion on this too what gives you hope and what are the things that you're most excited about and maybe collectively what do you think we should be paying attention to in this coming year yeah it's gonna it's going to sound weird so i don't want this to sound weird but i think what gives me hope is the pandemic has highlighted that everyone's mental health is important i think for a very long time we've been relegated to thinking that mental health is only something you need to talk about for someone with serious mental illness right and that was the box that we were put in the pandemic is showing yeah obviously we have to take care of our folks with serious mental illness but it's important that we are all emotionally well right so that we can handle stressful situations that's been the silver lining to me is that it has become just so much more important for everyone to think about how they interact with their mental health going forward thanks thanks to both of you for that question um i know we've got some questions and stuff coming in and we're trying to figure out if we can unmute people to ask the questions so if i can figure this out uh we will do so in just a second um kritika are we able to unmute people that have a question here i know we're almost at time yes i can unmute um the person who has a question okay um it looks like we have a question or a hand raise from patty murray and i don't know if this is senator murray if it is that's great but kritika if you can find them and unlock that'd be great um patty you should be able to talk now [Music] i need to unmute there if you can okay well we'll see if you can unmute please join us in here and you can interrupt us all um there there you go hi there can you hear me i'm sorry this is not patty murray the senator it's patty murray's sister uh with a traumatic brain injury mental illness sorry i'm on the streets of new york city listening to you thank you would you want to offer up a question or insights here for us no i i accidentally i've been listening and so wonderfully appreciating everyone and everything you're doing and i accidentally hit a button so hey it's okay sometimes i'm so sorry for your time please move forward oh no it's great i'm listening and keep going and thank you everyone okay thank you and thanks for dialing in from the city of new york this is great well we want to close here today first of all with my just thanks to my friends and my colleagues uh patrick lashawn and kavita you guys are amazing and we so appreciate your time and your sacrifice take and your service for what you've done um so on behalf of well-being trust and inseparable thank you and thank you all for joining us um our nation will be better if all of you get involved in advocacy full stop um our collective mental health is on the line and it's really up to us to change that trajectory for those new to mental health and new to advocacy today may have been your first day understanding the importance of your voice you've been challenged to take action we've given you some of the tools service opportunities like advocacy exist every day in your communities and with the knowledge from today it's our hope that you will join us in this journey for change on the screen here in front of you you can see ways that you can get involved follow up but thank you thank you for what you've done thank you for what you'll do and inevitably we're going to have the opportunity to impact on countless lives so thank you and enjoy the rest of your day