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���������� Note: 250 very spirited ���������� members braved the impending winter storm yesterday to come from every corner of ���������� to urge state legislators and the Governor to allocate an 8.5% COLA for our agencies and workforce and to expand access to peer bridger and crisis respite initiatives and upstate clubhouses and to thank the Governor for her inclusion of a $2.8 million for INSET peer led Intensive and Sustained Engagement Teams.
We received lots of encouragement from state legislators including Legislative Mental Health Committee chairs Assembly member Aileen Gunther and Senator Samra Brouk, amidst hopes of inclusion of the 8.5% COLA in the legislative one house proposals that are due later this week.
Great thanks to OMH Commissioner Ann Sullivan for joining us once again in support of our community and for her presentation on Governor Hochul’s historic $1 billion 5-year mental health investment. Also to Mark Mishler representing Julia Salazar.
Very special thanks to ����������’ Eileen Crosby, Len Statham and Luke Sikinyi for their pivotal efforts in advance of and at our Day.
Get a sense of the extraordinary ���������� 2023 Annual Albany Legislative Day from the attached photos, see below for media coverage and our news release, and stay tuned for more details later this week.

Mental Health Advocates Push for More Funding in NY Budget for Cost-Of-Living Adjustment
By Elise Kline   Erie News Now  March 14, 2023

ALBANY, NY (WENY)– Monday, mental health advocates traveled to Albany to plead for an 8.5 percent increase to the cost-of-living adjustment in the state budget to bolster the mental health workforce…

Gov. Hochul’s executive budget proposes a 2.5 percent increase to the cost-of-living adjustment. Advocates are pushing for 8.5. 

Some mental health workers said this increase to the cost-of-living adjustment is essential–especially for some ���������� counties who have fewer resources.  

“I love to do peer work. I could be making a lot more money doing anything else, but I make do on what I make. But not everyone’s willing to struggle just to help people. They want to help people and flourish as well. So, you have to give them that chance,” said Brandan Campbell, Certified Peer Specialist with Catholic Charities, Broome County.  

Some lawmakers agree. They said 8.5 is the minimum the mental health workforce needs to be able to recruit and retain workers. 

“This is an adjustment to make sure that a mom can buy eggs, and put gas in her car, and pay for childcare for her kids. The fact that we have to fight for this every single year is really something we shouldn’t have to do,” said Sen. Samra Brouk (D-55th Senate District). 

Brouk said the legislature is considering tying the cost-of-living adjustment to inflation. She recently introduced a  in the Senate that would do just that. 

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Sen. Samra Brouk Sponsors Bill Proposed to Alleviate Strain on Mental Health Services
by Alexis Young ���������� Now   March 13, 2023

With less than three weeks until ����������’s deadline for a state budget, advocates were at the state capitol on Monday to push for the inclusion of an 8.5% cost of living adjustment for mental health workers who receive state funding and a $500 million investment for mental health services.

Advocates said that funding will help curb turnover among the mental health care industry’s workforce, and allow for a stronger investment in services.

It’s unclear if the full Legislature will be willing to approve the 8.5% cost of living adjustment, also called a COLA, but Senate Mental Health Chair Samra Brouk, D-Monroe, said she’s on board.

“Right now across the state we have a workforce crisis but especially when it comes to mental healthcare, I’ve talked to facilities with 40% vacancy rates for their employees. What that means though is that when any of us need help there’s nobody there, if they’re unable to recruit and retain their staff,” Brouk said.

“So an 8.5% COLA, is again, the floor. That is just telling people, ‘hey you’ll be able to pay your mortgage next year by keeping this job.’”

There have been cost of living adjustments for human services but it’s few and far between.

“Out of the last 17 years, we’ve only received three COLAs and the money that was lost due to those COLAs being not withstood equates to about $500 million,” said Luke Sikinyi, director of public policy for the ���������� Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services.

“That’s the short fall we are seeing because of the lack of investment over the last 15, 20 years.”

In addition to the $500 million dollar investment and the 8.5% COLA advocates are hoping to secure financial and political support for a number of programs that prioritize the choices and autonomy of individuals who are experiencing homelessness or in need of mental healthcare.

“For INSET we had the governor propose $2.8 million for three programs,” Sikinyi said.

Project INSET stands for Intensive and Sustained Engagement Team. The Mental Health Association of Westchester launched the project in May 2018. The INSET team is mobile and prioritizes meeting individuals where they are while offering peer and professional services.

The program is specifically designed for people with mental health conditions who’ve experienced multiple hospitalizations, incarcerations and substance abuse. The INSET approach is said to reduce hospitalizations by building and nurturing supportive networks so people under the team’s care experience flexible wrap-around services in familiar environments.

“We really just want the legislature to approve that funding; it’s already been carved out by the governor and we know the program works extremely well and is great at engaging people,” Sikinyi said.

Clubhouses are community-based facilities for people with serious mental illnesses (SMI) whose lives have been affected by their SMI. The clubhouse model focuses on healing social symptoms of SMI – as well as physical and developmental symptoms – through a non-hierarchical system that acknowledges a member’s strengths and lets them choose how to build upon them.

Barry Floyd and Aracelis are members of clubhouses in the city. Aracelis said the Fountain House – opened in NYC during the 1940s – helped her continue her education through grants. Floyd said he was isolated before the clubhouse gave him opportunities to connect peers.

After membership, he started contributing to his clubhouse’s communications units. He’s even written a few articles for the unit.

“It’s a good feeling because it’s like you have a voice there,” Floyd said. “When we print the newspaper, that’s what goes out and you don’t feel shut out because the staff members do listen to us and they value our opinion.”

Sikiniyi says they’ve requested $2.5 million dollars each for the clubhouse and peer bridge programs.

“For the Peer Bridging and Clubhouses, we’re asking for, essentially, three pilots to show how well this works. We have done this in a number of hospitals before and we’ve seen a great success rate,” Sikinyi said.

During Governor Hochul’s 2023 State of the State, she proposed a 2.5% cost of living adjustment, a part of the $1 billion plan to support mental health care in ���������� State.

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Hundreds Of Advocates Rally in Albany for an 8.5% COLA and
Hospital Diversion and Discharge Programs in Legislative One House Bills

Hundreds of advocates and people impacted by major mental health, addiction, and trauma-related challenges from every corner of the state braved a major winter storm to rally in the Capital today, calling for a critically needed 8.5% COLA for battered community agencies and their workforce.

Led by the ���������� Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services (����������), speakers at the rally and accompanying news conference highlighted the urgent need for the 8.5% COLA and also for compassionate, cost-effective, and common-sense policies that they said will reduce runaway rates of relapse and recidivism as a result of failed hospital discharge plans.

“We’re extremely grateful that the Governor’s budget provides an unprecedented $1 billion investment in state mental health services over the next 5 years, especially in the areas of new and existing housing, crisis, mobile teams, outpatient clinics and care management,” said Luke Sikinyi, ���������� Public Policy Director.

“Yet, ���������� will not be able to address dire 40% job vacancy rates, reductions in service hours and substantial waiting lists without funding an 8.5% COLA that every single mental health advocacy organization has endorsed this year,” Sikinyi said.

“Everyday, we see the impact of constant staff turnover that breaks the trust and progress in their recovery that people have work so hard to attain,” said Maria Kavouras of People USA.

The group included representatives from the Mental Health Association of NYS, the Association for Community Living, Center for Community Alternatives, Community Access, Fountain House, National Alliance on Mental Illness-NYC, ���������� Association on Independent Living and ���������� Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI),

Several weeks ago, the Governor and Legislature identified an additional $800 million that is available over the $277 Executive Budget proposal.

“We are calling on both houses and the Governor to make a firm commitment to use some of these funds to provide desperately needed relief through the 8.5% COLA,” said Harvey Rosenthal, ���������� CEO. .

The groups also hailed Governor Kathy Hochul’s investment in 3 new INSET Intensive and Sustained Engagement Teams, a model created by ���������� and the Mental Health Association of Westchester in 2017 that has successfully and voluntarily engaged 80% of a group who would otherwise be subject to coercive treatment orders associated with Kendra’s Law.

“We now know how to help people in the greatest need, including those who have rejected services in the past that they have found unengaging, unresponsive and coercive,” said Dillan Browne of the MHA of Westchester and a ���������� Board member.

���������� has staunchly opposed the use of involuntary treatment orders associated with Kendra’s Law since its passage in 1999.

While the Governor’s budget authorizes the restoration of over 1,000 new community hospital psychiatric beds, far too many hospital admissions have ended in failed discharge plans that have only resulted in mounting recidivism rates, at an average daily cost of $3,300 per bed.

“A successful discharge plan should provide access to a person ‘who has been there’, a place to live and a place to go,” said Rosenthal.

A person who will be there: “peer bridgers are people who are successfully managing their recovery and providing peer support services to support individuals from hospital admission to discharge and into the community for as long as is needed,” said Taina Laing of Baltic Street AEH and ���������� Board Co-President. Baltic Street has operated peer bridger programs out of both state and community hospitals in ���������� City.

���������� created the internationally replaced Peer Bridger model in 1993 that has helped individuals with long stays in state hospitals to reduce their recidivism by 71%. ���������� is calling for the development of 3 hospital-to-community peer bridger programs this year for a total of $2.5 million.

“A place to live:  ���������� believes that the budget funds upwards of 500 Housing First beds that have successfully aided individuals who may not be taking medications and continue to be engaged in substance use.

A place to go that affords people a critically needed connection to community, social support and employment per the 75-year-old clubhouse model that was created by Fountain House in 1948 and has been successful replicated across the world.

The group is calling for the creation of 3 upstate clubhouses at an additional $2.5 million in line with ���������� City’s plans to triple the number of clubhouse programs in the 5 boroughs. Currently, there are no clubhouse programs in upstate ����������.

“���������� must bring the powerful promise of the clubhouse model back to upstate localities,” said Adam Selon, a ���������� board member from Buffalo.

“We will not hospitalize or coerce our way out of ����������’s mental health crisis,” said Rosenthal. “���������� must provide the 8.5% COLA to allow community services to thrive and not just survive and must invest in voluntary peer and clubhouse models that originated in ���������� and have decades of data showing highly successful engagement rates and outcomes,” Rosenthal said.