Busy guy. I had to go in late to my regular job in order to be disoriented at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Complex. Mostly stuff about fire safety, HIPPA, confidentiality and some other things I had learned in other settings. It started at 8 when I was half awake. We’re contractual employees who work at the hospital. I was stillo in the mood that had carried me over the weekend training. This despite the fact I had punched a wall during the training in a role play.
I didn’t feel anything immediately afterward but later on I put some pain reliever on it. The adrenaline had really grabbed me. Overall I found the event gratifying. I went to the barber Saturday and talked about it. I have made an interesting shift in recent years from identifying myself as a consumer to seeing myself more as a provider. I am aware of certain ethical guidelines that I use in my work.
I feel confident that even though I may encounter unfamiliar situations, my training has prepared me to make the right decisions. So even though I am new to working at the Mental Health Complex, I have what it takes. The County Hospital employees and the administration have been under siege for several years. There was a tragedy earlier this year when a man died and the investigation is still underway to determine the cause of death.
I want as a peer support specialist to contribute to an atmosphere that protects our patients and helps them to recover. The forms that we use at the hospital are filled with the names of former department heads. A unit will be closed shortly which continues the downsizing of the hospital. I am hoping that a few of the peer specialists who were working on that unit will be shifted to work on mine.People work where they feel most comfortable.
As a result of the orientation, we are legal to assume our responsibilities. I like to find out more about the people on the unit so I know the best way to help them. Meanwhile, I’m going to avoid slamming my first into walls.
English: Wisconsin State Assemblywoman Sandy Pasch in 2011. Photo courtesy of marctasman, via Flickr. {| class=”messagebox” style=”margin: 0.5em auto; width: 100%; background-color: #f8f8f8; border: 2px solid #e0e0e0; padding: 5px; direction: ltr;” |align=”center”| link=|25px → link=|25px | : File:File:Sandy Pasch 2011.jpg. |align=”center”| 100x100px|original file |colspan=”3″| |} Category:Extracted images (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I have no idea who Helen Callier is and really I don’t need to know. I do know Sandy Pasch from her work as an effective State Representative. And I also know that the Repugnants are accomplishing just what they wanted when they redistricted Wisconsin earlier this year, especially dividing up the Milwaukee area. Pasch, who is a nurse, is a strong advocate for mental health. She has been representing an area that stretched into Whitefish Bay. Apparently these people were receptive to her left-leaning politics. She took on a powerful State Senator Alberta Darling as part of the recall effort launched by Wisconsin Democrats.
Despite her defeat, the recall ultimately resulted in the Democrats winning control of the State Senate. Meanwhile, Helen Callier was sleeping under a log, to which she returned after she dropped out of the state assembly race. Good thing, too, because she’s full of shit. Helen, in your defense, you have the right to remain silent. I suggest that you exercise it.
I have felt sometimes that I was not being invited to the dance. I was pleasantly surprised a few weeks ago when I was invite to present at the Grassroots Empowerment Project Empowerment Days. And I was pleasantly surprised when a young woman who had received a recent promotion suggested that I apply for an unadvertised position with her agency. In the best of all worlds, the position would have been publicly announced and one of the other 39 state certified peer support specialists in Milwaukee would have been hired.
When I was at Empowerment Days, someone suggested that I would be an excellent board member for GEP. That’s possible. It’s also possible that peer support will be expanded at my agency and I will help recruit a new certified peer specialist.
So, where am I going with this? Nowhere, in particular, it’s Friday, I’m spouting hot air, but I’m also saying if you feel excluded, sometimes it’s better to develop your own little group.
Posted in friendship, peer mentors, politics
Affordable Care Act Anniversary (Photo credit: SEIU International)
I decided to re-circulate this information to both of my devoted readers.
Disability Activists Storm U.S. Supreme Court Demanding Support For The Affordable Care Act
Washington, D.C.— Hundreds of disability rights activists with the national group ADAPT have swarmed onto the plaza before the United States Supreme Court to demonstrate their support for the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court is currently deliberating whether to strike the Act down. ADAPT maintains that not only has the Act provided key protections against discrimination on the basis of disability in health care, but it provides for the Community First Choice Option, a federal Medicaid matching program whose rules were completed just yesterday.
ADAPT’s demonstration follows on the heels of two days of action on Capitol Hill. On Monday around 100 people were arrested at the Cannon House Office Building, protesting cuts to the House’s proposed Medicaid budget. Among the arrestees was film and tv actor Noah Wyle, formerly of ER and currently the star of Falling Skies. On Tuesday, ADAPT blitzed the US Department of Health and Human Services, winning a significant victory in the form of the issuance of the rules for the Community First Choice Option. ADAPT also confronted hotel industry lobbyists at a hearing on Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) regulations on swimming pools. The opposition of rules governing swimming pools is more widely seen as a potential avenue for weakening the interpretation of the ADA.
“The Affordable Care Act has done many good things for people with disabilities,” said Tim Sullivan of Chicago ADAPT. ”People with pre-existing conditions will have health insurance. It directs the government to address health care disparities including for people with disabilities. And of course we believe the Community First Choice Option is critical. My right to live in the community should not be destroyed by political warfare over whether this law is unconstitutional.”
“We have to take a stand for the programs that improve the lives of people with disabilities and others who need Medicaid services to live in the community,” said Dawn Russell of Denver ADAPT. ”We need the Supreme Court to recognize the decades of work that we have put into giving people with disabilities the legal tools to live in our communities with our families and friends, and not be forced into nursing homes.”
ADAPT was formed in 1984 around transit access, and began its focus on Medicaid community based services in 1992 after passage of the ADA, which legally affirmed that access to public transit is a civil right. The ADA, and a U.S. Supreme Court decision known as the Olmstead decision have both also affirmed that the right to live in the community is a civil right.
ADAPT will employ street theater and a mock “court” presentation of disability issues within the Affordable Care Act.
For more information about the Community First Choice Option and ADAPT, see www.adapt.org and
http://www.twitter.com/nationaladapt
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ADAPT Applauds Issuance Of Key Affordable Care Act Regulations
Washington, D.C.— On Tuesday, after months of pressure on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Medicaid division to release federal regulations for the Community First Choice (CFC) Option, the national grassroots disability rights group ADAPT stormed the HHS headquarters once again by surrounding its doors. This time, the protests yielded the long-awaited result: Cindy Mann, Director of the Center for Medicaid and State Operations announced at 6 pm that she had just that very afternoon submitted the CFC Option regulations in final form to the Federal Register for publishing. The issuance of the regulations brings the possibility of much-needed Federal assistance to states struggling with massive Medicaid cuts.
“After almost two years of working to get the CFC Option in the Affordable Care Act and then waiting for the regulations, ADAPT truly is celebrating this moment,” said Bruce Darling of Rochester ADAPT. “We thank Ms. Mann and Henry Claypool, Principal Deputy Administrator of the Administration on Community Living, for working with us to see the regulations come out.” The CFC Option is a provision of the Affordable Care Act that would provide Federal matching dollars, plus an extra six percent, to states that amend their Medicaid state plans to provide home and community based services for people with disabilities who meet a certain level of need, determined by each state.
The completion of the regulations marks a high point in a saga of front line battles between advocates in the states and their respective Medicaid administrators. Most states, faced with the prospect of budget cuts in a time of austerity, have not committed to taking advantage of the CFC Option. Some, like Illinois and Montana, have held off on final decisions pending release of the CFC regulations. Others, like New York and California, have moved forward with planning for the CFC Option implementation. In states that have not made such a commitment, Medicaid administrators have met with ferocious grassroots pressure from ADAPT.
HHS itself became the main focus of ADAPT efforts once it was clear that the agency was working on the regulations. The Affordable Care Act provided the deadline of October 1, 2011 for the publication of the CFC rules. Once that date passed, tensions in the disability community ratcheted up as anxiety grew about whether the Administration would hold firm to its commitment to community living and Olmstead implementation for people with disabilities. The release of the regulations and the very recent formation of the Administration on Community Living are both viewed by ADAPT as positive developments.
“We still have a lot of work to do,” said Darling. “The release of the regulations means we will now have to work state by state to ensure that every person with a disability has the same access to community living as everyone else. We are not done, but for today this is a major policy and advocacy victory for disability rights.”
For more information, see www.adapt.org and
http://www.twitter.com/nationaladapt
I was getting antsy waiting to do my presentation and feeling tortured by the discussion of the issue certified peer specialists. What did this issue mean to me? Who was I before I was certified? Who am I now? What is my vision of recovery? Where do we go?
I did an improvised version of my presentation in front of the Grassroots family this morning and I probably spoke for around 7 minutes. Tonight I will be giving a somewhat more concise version a couple of minutes briefer. And I statrted working on my notes. Then tomorrow I will talk with legislators. This legislative process is a little tricky because my former State Senator G. Spencer Coggs is now City Treasurer Coggs. And my State Representative is Tamara Grigsby who is retiring for health reasons. I’m going to accompany a friend meeting her representatives and I plan to visit the staff of JoCasta Zamarripa who I have met. I want to start spreading the news.
As it happened the ideas were all there in my lived experiences. As a poorly paid peer specialist I had been evicted, I had been judged according my ability to clean and I had been subject to what I considered arbitrary restrictions by clinicians. And now that I am certified do I want to join an organization that I fundamentally distrust? Is that the reality behind the promise of certifying peer specialists?
It all came together as I was starting to speak, words found themselves inside of me. This was what 8 years of hard work had brought. I think of the Bruce Springsteen song and the line “I’ll wait for you; if I fall behind, wait for me.” Peers, I am waiting for you. Are you coming?
Trayvon Martin Protest - Sanford (Photo credit: werthmedia)
Malcolm X (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I ride the bus as my main means of getting around Milwaukee and all too often I heard through the earphones of young black passengers I hear people talking about “nigger this” and “nigger that” and then I hear on the other side of town about deaths. We have been focused in these last few weeks on 2 situations: that Trayvon Morris in Florida and Bo Morrison in Slinger, Wisconsin.
But what about the ordinary killers of African-Americans? Who is hunting them? Who is looking for the guy who killed his baby mama at 20th and Walnut after beating her with his bare fists? Will anyone find the foster children of Sara Ann, a young mother whose other children are in the foster care system? Will Sara Ann be reunited with her her children one more time? Will we learn about changes in the system after she is dead?
Who will indict and convict the sellers of candy band other killers of black people? Will we round up the grocery stores, gas stations, and crack heads who sell shit that winds up being sold for death in our communities? Will we wind up with over crowding the already full jails with even even more prisoners?
I blogged without end about George Zimmerman who should be facing life ion prison for murdering Trayvon Martin. But the sad truth is that African-Americans, often friends or domestic partners of African-Americans are the ones who kill our brothers and sisters.
\The stories about murders by racists grab our attention because we have been so innoculated by the ordinary murders that take place around us that we have no idea that the guy upstairs putting his hands on that attractive young woman may end up killing her tonight. We need to stop murdering one another and start loving one another.
It begins with the Staples Singers and their song but it needs you to sing along. Pledge tonight that you will not kill anyone tonight.
African American members of ILGWU Local 222 picket outside. (Photo credit: Kheel Center, Cornell University)
Posted in angry, blogging, change process, family values, Hating the poor, politics
Tagged African American, Foster care, George Zimmerman, Murder, Trayvon Martin
Image via Wikipedia
Yesterday was primary election day for many local races in Milwaukee. To prepare for this event I checked to learn who were my local representatives, found a piece of mail to bring with me to the polls as proof of address and then learned about the candidates. The actual voting took place in the afternoon between my morning and afternoon shifts. I went to the polling place where I had voted the past several years, only to discover I was in a new ward and I would have to walk a few blocks to my new polling place.
Voting has been ingrained in me almost from birth. When I went home for the holidays in December my soon to be 88 year old mother told me she not only votes but also helps drive others to the polls. My older sister is a former Democratic committee woman. I found my first girl friend through working on a political campaign while in high school. Yes, I was born to be informed.
I was always aware that our choices my be limited or increased by what happens at the ballot box. Take re-designing the mental health system in Milwaukee County, for example. At least two of the new supported apartment buildings constructed in Milwaukee were built using federal money from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 signed into law by President Obama. This act, derided by Republicans, helped create real and permanent good by offering decent affordable housing for people with mental illness. Combined with resources from state and local government, private foundations and investors, it was an example of economic stimulation at its finest.
It was a sharp contrast the the Bush era economic stimulus which consisted of nothing more than a small across the board tax cut. Barely Political, a You tube satire group, did a hilarious send up of the stimulus package. It included a man fantasizing about all the great things he was going to buy with his $200.
The merits of these approaches to government are being debated and distorted every day in the media and it behooves everyone to learn about them. Especially when you are recovering from a mental illness, you need to understand that you can make a difference in the world around you. You can petition, make telephone calls, write blogs, talk to your neighbors and pay attention to the news. These are called instrumental activities of daily living and they are almost as essential as getting a good night’s rest in building a whole life. You will find the more you immerse yourself in the world, the less time you will have to feeling distressed.
Image via CrunchBase
