Advocacy

While the show has been widely popular as a binge worthy Netflix series, ‘Orange is the New Black’ does not particularly provide me with the entertaining escape from reality that I’m sure it does for many others. Having heard the stories of people who have been incarcerated and their struggle to meet basic needs after release, I think the show attempts in some small way to use entertainment as education or awareness of a larger societal issue.

One issue that the show has only vaguely touched on is prisons being the new mental health institutions, a.k.a. trans-institutionalization. We’ve seen it with Suzanne, Tiffany, Nicky, Lolly, and to some extent Sophia with hormones. We’ve seen Healy dose out medications like candy to Brooke as well.

This speaks to a larger issue of prisons as mental health facilities providing an exorbitant number of people a massive number of pharmaceutical medications with no real additional supports like therapy. 

Kennedy passed legislation for deinstitutionalization and community integration for people with disabilities that were long housed in human zoos. While Reagan, in his fiscal reforms of government spending and oversight made sure that states received block grants to oversee their own mental health services while no one followed up as that effort largely failed to meet the needs of people with disabilities and their families. Thereby leaving families to provide necessary support and for the correctional system to become what it is now.
Below is a link to an excellent article in The Atlantic about Chicago’s Cook County Jail. Hopefully if you are not aware of the larger issues at play you will understand much better and begin to see how we are in the process of repeating history in the mental and medical health of vulnerable populations in America.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/americas-largest-mental-hospital-is-a-jail/395012/

Next week the focus will be on private prisons.

There lies a general ignorance of the public in individuals who have been incarcerated. What extends is a belief that people need to live with the consequences of their actions for the entirety of there lives. If you follow any local news channel’s Facebook page and look through the comments whenever there is a story about a crime or when someone is being released from prison, the amount of deep vitriol is astounding. Even more astounding is how people do not shy away from their mean comments when identified through their profiles.

I have volunteered in a support group for men recently released from prison and it has been very hard to find the words to give them hope when the general public continues to believe that one mistake or offense means that a person is permanently bound to re-offend in a cycle. In reality, the public creates a self-fulfilling prophecy by not being willing to provide support and resources for people eager to find their place in society once again.

However, community resources exist if you know where to go, who to talk to, and who has been where you are now. Unfortunately, this is often a difficult journey. Made more difficult when businesses do not want to take a chance on individuals with a past even when individuals are upfront about their past. In a labor force that needs workers, many people with a record are turned away.

Minnesota was successful in cutting their prison population in half with a corrections budget that is half the size of Wisconsin’s. Wisconsin attempted this with a campaign called 11×15 which failed miserably, in my opinion due to a heavy reliance on faith-based communities rather than more local and state community involvement. Awareness campaigns typically only garner attention from people already aware of the issues and already embroiled in the fight.

Below is a link for an NPR chat with a sociology professor and an individual who wrote a book about his experiences after prison and how much discrimination still exists for individuals with a criminal record regardless of the severity of crimes, the years served, or the years being successful back in society.

http://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/03/08/issues-facing-former-inmates

As a social worker and advocate I know that effectiveness depends on knowing how to utilize resources for clients. Awareness campaigns typically only garner attention from people already aware of the issues and already embroiled in the fight. Often times a client will look at your life and see a well manicured golf course while they are trying to manage a mine field. It’s through resources and support systems that we can show them how mine fields can become golf courses.

Augusto Boal and Cathy Plourde are two people who have taught me that performance and advocacy are much more effective when you extend it beyond the awareness stage. Several years ago Cathy Plourde was brave enough to take a risk on my poetic performance pieces and breathe life into them to reach more people than I could have ever imagined. Cathy now works on the development of a new literary venture called Animal Mineral Press; the fledgling project being “Making Out Like A Virgin.” A collection of stories that have assisted others to move beyond the trauma they have experienced surrounding sexual violence.

The book is not a collection of stories retelling traumatic events but rather offers up ways that survivors have begun to become thrivers again. People taking charge in the complex and misunderstood nature of trauma and the role it plays in individuals’ lives.

I invite you to take a look at a bold move in treating and supporting people who have endured sexual trauma. Stories by individuals who are rising up beyond bracelet awareness campaigns and gender specific fallacies of victimization. Cutting across international, cultural, and religious borders. Bringing awareness out of the shadows of those already aware and providing people with tools for action and moving forward.

The Kickstarter campaign:

Sound cloud excerpts:

https://soundcloud.com/user-622424478/from-breathing-compassion-an-excerpt-from-making-out-like-a-virgin-2

It started with people passing out Gideon bibles to attendees that were green like all of the Kids in Crisis materials available. So people were accepting them in confusion. Also the audience input involved putting a question on a note card, there was no real community engagement of the audience.

And maybe part of my annoyance of this townhall is my almost automatic response to turn into a passive aggressive kid at these types of things. But that’s trauma and we know trauma-informed care is a hot button issue that everyone likes to reference but virtually no one uses correctly.

Anyways, on the panel was a parent from a parent advocacy organization based in Madison (Wisconsin Family Ties). Mr. Davis brought up a good point that Chapter 51 was created over 40 years ago.

Next on the panel was a clinical psychologist from Catalpa. Ms. Hanson’s short bio said that she specialized in Autism Spectrum Disorder and OCD. She supports universal screenings and mental health literacy in schools. When an attendee’s note card question brought up the fact that schools call police officers to handle crisis, she must have been grossly uninformed about the issue. Ms. Hanson said that when police are called to respond to a crisis in schools, they ask that an officer trained in de-escalation techniques be sent. She said that there hasn’t been an issue with an officer not having de-escalation training. Except that the Kids in Crisis reporters covered a story in their series about police officers lacking the sufficient crisis intervention training to intervene in mental health crises. This also ignores the report that Disability Rights Wisconsin released about kids in school being restrained and isolated at an alarming rate.

Ms. Hanson from Catalpa also spoke about how Catalpa had 21 mental health professionals embedded in area schools. To which I would like to point out that this is a service that has existed before Catalpa was created. It’s called the PATH program and it is run by Family Services and United Way. I heard about it initially when I interviewed for a NAMI internship and then after graduate school I interviewed for a position that would have been part-time in Hortonville High School and part-time at Family Services’ Menasha Counseling Center.

Next on the panel was a psychology professor at Lawrence University. She didn’t say much which was part of the problem. I saw that one of her research areas was non-suicidal self injury, something I have a fair amount of knowledge about to one day create a theatre piece that can be performed in schools. An audience question brought up the fact that LGBT youth commit suicide at an almost doubled rate of peers. What services are available to them in the area? Lawrence University professor Ms. Hilt pointed to GSAs in schools without actually calling them GSAs. She made a quick remark about the multiple initials used in the LGBT community and not knowing all of them, which is an issue for a college professor where people often begin to experience an independence in their queer identity. To say nothing of other available resources in the community started and funded through Goodwill. Forgetting to mention the fact that the city of Appleton employs it’s own diversity coordinator.

The last panelist was the head of Wisconsin’s Office of Children’s Mental Health. There was an audience question about discharge planning for hospital stays and Ms. Hudson said that on average, clients receive 3 therapy sessions following a hospital stay. Panelists tried to argue that discharge planners couldn’t find services because of a lack of services available. Lack of services is not the issue, it is lack of Medicaid-enrolled services; something that appears to be changing.

In conclusion, I’m tired of awareness campaigns. I’m tired of wasteful spending of time and resources to appeal to people that already understand the issues either through occupation or personal experience. I’m tired of professionals sitting on panels that don’t have a firm grasp on the unique available resources of the community whose residents they serve. I’m tired of being a listener and spectator at all of these events. My father used to travel the country delivering speeches about kids with disabilities and the parents that dared to love them.

If you are on a medical assistance program and you have a disability, you are generally allowed only a limited amount of assets. There are some ways you are allowed to save money for things like a house or apartment. Disability rights advocates have been pushing for people to be able to have savings. If you are disabled, you shouldn’t be limited to your ability to earn income in other ways and save that income for a future investment.

My parents always wanted me to push harder when it came to SSDI and disability benefits but I was adamant that I didn’t want to live under the financial constraints that are tied to disability services. And now WI congressional leaders are trying to take away any kind of savings accounts or assets.

I am absolutely growing sick and tired about how people with disabilities are treated in this day and age. And I also hear through the grapevine that IRIS may be eliminated soon too. It’s time for some hardcore advocacy. It’s time for those old pre-ADA marches where people crawled onto the capital’s steps to demand equal rights. This time, equal protection under the law to be independent in a world of temporarily abled people.

Able Accounts.
http://legis.wisconsin.gov/assembly/78/subeck/news/press-releases/republicans-fast-track-legislation-to-roll-back-savings-accounts-for-disabled-wisconsinites/

I caught another press release from Disability Rights Wisconsin. This time it involves a bill that has passed the legislature. Bill 667 is all about protecting children with disabilities within Child Protection Services and investigations.

Once again, I have a bit of a bone to pick with this bill and DRW about the requirement to list whether a child involved in an abuse investigation has a disability. In my job, we want to be able to find data sources to show that services are effective. This bill collects data by requiring CPS to not only document whether a child has a disability but also identifying that disability within categories.

I agree that children and adults with disabilities a higher incidence of abuse from parents, guardians, and service providers. The plan is to develop collaborations with DHS. What is DHS going to do in county CPS investigations? I also agree that when it comes to non-verbal children, there should be a written process of procedures to follow to better assess the possibility of abuse.

But where is the self determination or self worth of the child when you require that their disabilities be disclosed? And then it ends up on a spreadsheet somewhere for the state to use to garner funding in the future, not the counties. Their mention of offering additional training means more money for universities that run professional development trainings which in turn helps the state department of safety and professional services (licensing).

Every morning I get Change.org petitions in my email. It’s a small act that can add up when it comes to sheer numbers of signatures. I also enjoy getting updates from the petitions I’ve signed.

Today I was shocked to see the petition headline. Apparently the VA is trying to deal with their stream of unattended veteran files by trying to cut down their existing client therapy hours. That isn’t a new thing for insurance providers. I’ve been in the process of becoming more informed on Wisconsin’s Medicaid. Behavioral treatment is billed now in thirty minute sections.

It seems that the VA’s hiring of thousands of additional mental health professionals has not assisted in the backlog of veterans needing services. The new attempt is to double case loads by cutting therapy sessions in half. Pair this with the fact that for many veterans, the travel time is more extensive than the therapy time.

What are we as civilians supposed to do? What are we as veteran’s families supposed to do? I don’t have the answers and I don’t have the slightest clue as to how to start advocating for these veterans.

https://www.change.org/p/don-t-skimp-on-our-veterans-mental-health-therapy

I write a lot about non-profits and community services. But I was thinking about transitional services this past week. In my volunteer group, everything outside of being a listener is directing people to transitional services.

I have researched a lot of information about Autism Spectrum Disorder and the behavioral treatments. And I see far too much focus on ABA therapy. The main issue is when clients have other issues that ABA is not programmed to deal with. Where are the transitional services? Youth and their families find themselves dealing with in-patient behavioral health and discharge planners are at at odds with the lack of transitional services available.

As I have written in a recent post, there are clinically trained and licensed professionals who prefer to use their experience working in services that are already being met by less clinically experienced professionals.

Communities will continue to deal with shortages of clinical professionals when they only want to work in the private sector using common methods that don’t offer special populations.

Today I discovered a collaboration between two youth mental health agencies. Both agencies fulfill needs in the community however, their collaboration doesn’t fulfill one of the biggest community needs that their collaboration and combined expertise could provide.

Their collaboration refuses to work with youth with autism spectrum disorder or severe emotional disorders. They were provided almost half a million in local community foundation dollars to start a day treatment program that expressly blocks many families from very needed resources.

I remember when one of the agencies was about to open, many community leaders applauded the ability that they would solve so many issues with adolescent mental health. I’ve had many conversations with the director over the phone and emails.

Like I said in my last post, we need to make agencies do more than just awareness campaigns. We need agencies and non-profits to actually fulfill some needs in the community. New programs and initiatives should be carefully analyzed before they are provided extensive community foundation resources. With the client criteria this collaboration works to serve, many other less clinically trained agencies and staff already fulfill the same need. What the community needs is more clinical practice professionals willing to fulfill clinical practice needs.