NAMI Finger Lakes provides opportunities to learn about local initiatives and how to advocate for better mental health care here at home. If you would like to join us in our efforts, please reach out to let us know! Email [email protected]
NAMI New York State is your state affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI NYS provides a strong voice for families and individuals who care about mental health. They've wasted no time in 2022 providing us with information and tools for communicating our needs to policymakers across the state and in our community.
This month, we share their most recent alerts, so you can see all that's happening and to lend your voice to this important effort. If you do not receive the NAMI NYS E-news, please sign up so you can keep up to date with all the ways NAMI is working for you. Click to Join the NAMINYS E-news List
On January 5th, Governor Hochul delivered her first State of the State address, and her speech included several references to mental health initiatives including one of NAMI-NYS’s leading priorities, supporting the behavioral health workforce. The Behavioral Health advocacy coalition, that NAMI-NYS is a part of, was encouraged that the Governor included a $500 million Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for
human services workers and $2 billion to support mental health and substance use disorder care and mental hygiene worker retention bonuses.
However, it was not clear if the behavioral health sector is included in the aforementioned COLA funding or the $2 billion to support healthcare worker wages. The ambiguous language around this funding must be addressed. Concern also continues for advocates, as that in addition to a 5.4% COLA, the system needs $500
million for their workforce, service, and support.
Click here to read the coalition’s full statement.
In addition, Governor Hochul discussed her goals of adding more mental health professionals in schools and integrating more mental health professionals to address
homelessness and its roots, including mental illness.
The Governor’s State of the State book, which was also released yesterday, contains several positive initiatives, including the creation of 7,000 units of supportive housing and preserving 3,000 units over the next five years — providing 10,000 units in all to further prevent homelessness and serve vulnerable and
at-risk populations that includes people with serious mental illness. Other mental health initiatives include: telemedicine to connect to Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Programs (CPEPs), mental health grants for school districts, integrating pediatric psychiatric and primary care, enhancing suicide prevention initiatives for schools, homes, and communities, expansion of home-based crisis intervention
programs and establishing a Mental Wellness Community Workforce.
You can click here to view the State of the State book, please note the mental health section begins on page 41.
Despite the many positives of the State of the State, NAMI-NYS was disappointed that our other leading priority, funding New York’s 9-8-8, was not included in the address or in the book. The articles below, explain both why replacing 9-1-1 with a
fully funded 9-8-8 is so critical as well as the issues states are having funding 9-8-8.
The one thing that is clear is that the voice of NAMI-NYS advocates are desperately needed to fight to keep the positive elements of the State of the State in the state budget, to fund the behavioral health workforce and 9-8-8 as well as advance the numerous legislative initiatives contained in the 2022 NAMI-NYS Action Agenda.
Register today for NAMI-NYS’s Legislative Action Weeks. The registration site also
includes plenty of resources to help our members project their advocacy voices and demystify meeting with our legislators. These include our telling your story guide, talking points for our issues and our 2022 mock legislative meeting video.
We also want to remind our members that you don’t need to tell your story in a meeting if you are not comfortable doing so-simply being there still sends a powerful message that demonstrates the support for our issues.