Make Your Voice Heard

Make Your Voice Heard: Guidelines for Effective Advocacy

One crucial part of my mental health recovery journey is  reaching out to help others in need. I do this in a variety of ways. One area that is truly a life saver for me is the volunteer work I do assisting people seeking Protection From Abuse orders, or PFA’s for short. Another area I concentrate on is acting as an advocate for people who are struggling because of their involvement in a system. I offer free help to those encountering issues with the legal system, medical system, tax system, benefits system, and school system the most often, although there are other systems I have tried to help untangle as well. I am learning through these experiences with individuals about the type of advocacy work that is done on a larger scale for whole groups.

Advocates for individual groups often meet unfair policies and practices that hinder rather than help their clients. Changes to such policies in the form of rules, regulations and laws, often require the support and commitment of legislators, political leaders and other policy makers. The following are some guidelines on how to be an effective advocate and communicate your message. Remember that efficiency requires education, both your own and your audiences, as well as reliability, accessibility and persistency.

Identify Your Goal

• What do you want to accomplish? For example, decide if you want to introduce legislation to change a discriminatory employment practice like lifting a particular occupational bar or licensing restriction for people with criminal records.

Develop Your Strategy for Accomplishing Your Goal

• Who has the power to effect your desired change? What is the process for the policy or regulatory change that you want to make and who has the power to make it. It could be legislators on the local, state or federal level, or perhaps, appointed commissioners on the state level who are responsible for promulgating the particular rule or regulation.
• Who are your partners? Identify organizations and individuals that may share your goal and who can help you communicate your message. These may be local or statewide residents, coalitions of individuals and/or groups, as well as community-based organizations, faith-based organizations, and other advocacy groups.
• What is the timeline for your goal? Be aware of legislative timelines, such as when the legislature is in session. Be patient, understand that achieving your goal could take a considerable amount of time.

Create Documents that Will Help You Communicate Your Message

• Are your documents clear and concise? Politicians, policy makers and other officials, and their staff, are busy and often do not have time to read a lot of information. However, supplying them with written information that includes data and research on your issue may support your position. Therefore, make sure that the written materials that you provide them with are specific to the issue and the area that they represent.

Helpful Tips for Conducting a Meeting

• When introducing yourself make sure that you identify yourself as a constituent or as someone who represents constituents.
• State the point of the meeting at the beginning.
• Be brief and to the point.
• Listen as well as talk during the meeting, as well as take notes on questions or concerns that come up during the meeting.
• Be honest. Acknowledge the positive and negative aspects of the issue.
• Share written materials during the meeting, if it is appropriate, and leave them behind for the leader of the staff that you are meeting with to read.

Cultivate a Champion

• Who can represent and advocate for your issue publicly and champion your goal? It can be incredibly beneficial to have a public figure, such as a famous person or politically powerful person, to help you with your advocacy and to deliver the message you need to achieve your goal. Regardless of who it is they need to be persistent, charismatic and effective.

Most importantly, don’t burn any bridges, whether you achieve your goal or not. You never know who you may need to work with again. Be a gracious winner or loser.

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Little Known, All Natural Secret Treatment For Depression

I Got Major Depressive Disorder (Photo credit: Jean Big Cat)

I have battled the beast otherwise known as major depressive disorder for a decade or so now. During my battles I did extensive research on treatments for this debilitating condition and consulted with many professionals. I met with dietitians and nutritionists. I met with spiritual counselors, I joined a support group…..which turned out to be a triggering  and numbing experience for me personally. I had, and still have, many sessions with psychologists. I was treated by psychiatrists. I considered whether I should have ECT therapy….. otherwise known as electric shock…… after several courses of several different anti-depressive medications seemed not to work. At one point, one of my treating doctors had me on a regimen of medications that included an SSRI, a tricyclic antidepressant, an antipsychotic, an anti-anxiolytic, and gabapentin. Within six or seven weeks of this regimen, I developed a pretty severe reaction called serotonin syndrome that put me in the ER.

Finding a treating psychologist that is a good fit for you is a tricky thing in my experience. It has a lot in common with finding a mate. It takes a bit of time to figure out if you are a good fit.  Just like dating, some things look pretty and shiny and wonderful on the surface, but as the layers peel back over time, you find some behaviors or thought processes that are deal breakers……you just aren’t the right fit. For some people they find the right fit on the first or second try. With me, it took five. It seemed like it took forever and I was ready to give up hope on the whole thing. But number five was THE ONE. And his advice and guidance has been more precious to me than any diamond ring. While helping me address and process the trauma and issues that are my life in a way that will lead to my maximum return to health, he has passed on to me some real gems. So many of these things in hindsight seem so obvious……the kind of “duh, why didn’t I think of that” obvious. And I am about to share one of them with you.

As a firm advocate of holistic healing, he understood my strong dislike of taking psychotropic medication.  But he also knew that I was  struggling with strong suicidal ideation and very scared of my own mind. During the course of one of our sessions, he told me that a wise old guru once shared with him that when a person feels down, what they need to do most is go give back. The worse one feels, the more depressed one is, the more urgently they need to go volunteer. They need to help someone else who is struggling. His prescription to me that day…..immediately go do something nice for someone who was suffering and expect nothing else in return. And you know what?…..This RX is one that really works.

During the eight years before getting this prescription, I had not heard or read of this idea once before. But it seems so natural. What a concept! If you are feeling down…..force yourself to get out from under your covers and go give back. Not only will you receive the blessed feeling of doing something good, it will naturally lead you to contemplating gratitude. Practicing gratitude flips a metaphorical switch in your brains thought processes for the positive. You will be amazed the power that a smile to a random person holds. I know I was, and continue to feel this way .  I find that something Tony Robbins says quite a bit holds true in my life…..if you look at the ceiling and smile and laugh…..even if you are forcing it…..it is practically impossible to feel bad in that moment. While it is virtually impossible to look up and smile every minute of every day…..doing something to help someone else on a daily basis is much more attainable and gives you the same results.

So please go share this “secret”treatment…..dare I even say for some a cure……for depression. Give it a try and tell everyone you know. Let’s make this the worst kept secret ever. Keep on going!