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Advocacy: The Power of the Collective Voice
Policy-making can solve systemic problems, but we can only achieve true behavioral healthcare reform with adequate financial resources. Advocating for public support for mental healthcare takes time, persistence, and a group effort. One of the most successful examples of collaboration in New...
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Building the Missing Middle: How Advocacy Helped Create a New Behavioral Health Intervention for New Yorkers With Serious Mental Illness
For decades, our behavioral health systems have faced the growing challenge of meeting the needs of people with serious mental illness (SMI). In New York, where the Institute for Community Living (ICL) operates, and most places in the country, demand for services far exceeds supply. Furthermore,...
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Advocacy’s Strange Bedfellows: How New York’s Landmark Behavioral Health Budget Came to Be
Governor Hochul's Executive Budget for Fiscal Year 2023-2024 (FY 2024) included unprecedented investments in behavioral healthcare and related services for the most vulnerable residents of New York. This emerged in response to widespread homelessness, rapidly rising rates of suicide, and epidemics...
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Advocacy Through Awareness: Why Patients Need to Know TMS Exists
There is a moment many mental health patients know all too well. It's the moment after another medication change. Another follow-up appointment. Another hopeful start that doesn't provide the relief they need to survive. By the time some patients reach that point, they are exhausted by their...
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The Adusu Advocacy Framework: A Strategic Model for Advancing Policy Reform in Developmental Disability Services
Across many countries, systems supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) are experiencing significant pressure. Workforce shortages, increasing service demand, and funding constraints have created fragile service environments that test providers, policymakers,...
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Showing Up Matters: The Power of Relationship-Based Advocacy in Behavioral Health
Behavioral Health Advocates: Association for Community Living, Coalition of Medication-Assisted Treatment Providers and Advocates of New York State (COMPA), Families Together in New York State, InUnity Alliance, Mental Health Association in New York State, National Alliance on Mental Illness New...
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A Call to Amend New York’s Constitution on Mental Health
For decades, New York has been a national leader in advancing mental health policy. Legislators, advocates, providers, and families have fought tirelessly to secure access to treatment, improve insurance coverage, and reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness. Yet despite these efforts, a...
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New York Behavioral Health Advocates Rally at Capitol, Win Support of 100+ Legislators for Critical Funding Increase
The Mental Health Association in New York State and leading statewide behavioral health and human services organizations have been rallying with legislators at the State Capitol in support of the final budget for FY 2026-27 including a 4% targeted inflationary increase (formerly known as the cost...
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Ira Minot, MHNE Founder, Bids Farewell: Looking Forward to New Challenges
Mental Health News Education (MHNE) recently held its 2025 Leadership Awards Reception, where Founder and former Executive Director Ira Minot, LMSW, was honored with the Founder’s Legacy Award for his more than 25 years of visionary leadership. Presenting the award was Ashley Brody, CEO of Search...
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The Silent Barrier: How Fear of Judgment from Healthcare Providers Keeps People from Seeking Help
What if the person meant to help you was the one you feared most? Imagine sitting in an exam room, fidgeting with your cell phone, scrolling through apps, and trying to distract yourself from the anxiety building inside. You are aware of the antiseptic smell lingering in the air, but it’s drowned...
