Page 40 - NovDec16.FTM

CALLING ALL EMERGING PROFESSIONALS AND STUDENTS
get involved in advocacy today!
In the last year, I have become an unintentional advocate for marriage and family therapy. I’m not even sure how it happened, other than I’m absolutely so over the denigration and subjugation of mental health and mental health services. In my frustration, I decided the pen is mightier than the sword (plus, swords aren’t allowed in my house), and I put my frustration to paper. I also started talking more about advocacy with my students and supervisees. I discovered these fabulous new professionals were craving knowledge about what was happening in the field, in the mental health landscape, in policy. And, they were determined to know “how can I get involved.” These advocacy tips are a collection of ideas I’ve shared, and co-created, with this next generation of family therapists:
1. Remember The Ethics! Not quite as catchy as “Remember the Alamo,” but I’m newly Texan and it seems appropriate. Both are battle cries. In terms of MFT advocacy, we have a responsibility to serve our clients and our communities, by speaking out against mental health misinformation, stigma, and oppression. We have an ethical duty to advocate for our clients’ best interests, their mental health care needs, and therefore, our ability to serve these needs through training, licensure, and insurance coverage.
2. Read the AAMFT Code of Ethics Focus on Commitment to Service, Advocacy and Public Participation. Consider the ethical implications of not advocating—in every session, every case presentation, every supervision, every conversation with colleagues. Swim in the consideration of systemic advocacy, until you’re too anxious to not advocate. (I think we call that therapeutic anxiety, or exposure therapy.)
3. Do not pass go. Feeling all advocacy-ish? Excellent. Stay right where you are. And get informed. In order to understand the broader systemic movements affecting our clients and our field, we must know and understand regional laws, policies, and political influences.
4. Learn all the statistics. It’s not enough to know 1 in 5 adults have a mental illness. What are the unmet mental health needs in your area? Rates of severe and persistent mental illness? Do you live in a Mental Health Professional Shortage Area? Are there a growing number of families encountering child welfare? What is the local uptake, and cost-offset effect, of integrated care? How long does it take new professionals to get licensed in your state? What’s the average regional salary, and how does it compare to other health care providers (local and national)?
a. Read and understand all state-level codes specific to the provision of mental health (not just family therapy!), as well as those affecting families.
b. Read federal-level legislation. Now, I know no one who has read the entirety of the Affordable Care Act, for example. But I know people who know almost nothing (factual) about it, or what it means for mental health. Don’t be that person.
c. Know who your local, state, and federal representatives are, what they’re working on, and when they’re up for reelection. Regardless of their party affiliation, what’s important for their community should be important to them, whether or not you voted for them.
d. Follow state-level policy through local legislature, regional news, and organizations devoted to digesting mental health legislation and policy-making.
5. Know their love language. If we come at our clients harshly, too directly, with new ideas that are too unusual,
they reject us. Understandably. So, learn how to couch your advocacy efforts in terms that are palatable, simple, direct, and match the interests of the people with whom you are advocating.
6. Develop an elevator speech. Short, direct, to the point. You need elevator speeches about a) what marriage and family therapy is (what’s unique about us and what do we
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