IVAT Poster
To: Private List
From: "Andrew Phelps" <starfish@northcoast.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Sep 2011 18:16:10 -0700
Subject: [xxx] culture of social responsibility
Hi
I am hopeful for the future of CNMHC. The struggle to create a culture of social responsibility in the Network is difficult, and we have clearly reached a turning point. It is also a painful place and many behaviors based on the "old habits" must be re-thought so that business can be handled at the appropriate level. There needs to be accountability, and there needs to be forgiveness.
In Texas "the state .. reduced funding, cut programs that were working well for consumer operated services, and put unreasonable demands on the organization" [quote from the former Chair of the TMHC Board, Feb. 2009]. In the end the Texas Mental Health Consumers statewide network was forced to disband. In other states, heavy duty political outcomes also derive from state government choices that affected the ccharacter of the organizing. I'm minded of Sue Poole's bitter experience with South Carolina DMH and the subsequent advantage that went to NAMI-SC: I have lived experience learning about that.
In California the state DMH politics has been
somewhat different. In my view we had a deficient "corporate support" arrangement, most recently arranged 1997. Now with the meltdown of DMH, that arrangement has collapsed. We can continue and extend the infighting that characterized the 1995-1997 period especially, or we can find a positive framework to move forward.I agree that standing up to Laura's Law is one aspect of that. But we do need to think that politics through again, outside of the earlier framework. The CNMHC fought Laura's Law the first time in a complicated situation that meant challenging DMH while also being dependent on their support. That advocacy needs to be reframed, IMHO. We do need to find our way to work out of the infighting that was previously managed with the [!] "help" of DMH.
Best
Andrew Phelps