I know a weblog should be more of me writing and not so much of me posting things that have gone out on my listserv.  I don't post every thing from the info list here, just items I deem particularly interesting or pressing.  So I will try to do better writing my own thoughts and comments.  Sometimes they might be about what has been posted; other times they will not. Entries   I write I will keep the title as the default, that is Entry for (date).  I might have more then one thought to share so I'll try numbering them.

1) Last weekend was the Pennsylvania Mental Health Consumers' Association board of directors meeting.  I think the meeting went very well.    We approved some major policy statements.  We reaffirmed support for the state Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse definition of recovery.  We approved a draft statement on the closure and downsizing of state hospitals, while this needs to be tweaked a bit we approved the spirit of the document and affirmed our resolution passed at the last meeting declaring our support for closure of all state hospitals.  Also we approved the language of our support and definition of consumer run and directed organizations.

 Membership remains a problem area.  I think individuals are just used to being considered members as a part of an organization membership.  Unfortunately the number of organizations that are officially members has declined also.  The board needs to take a greater role in encouraging memberships.  I will be writing a letter the executive directors of the agencies that the county DHS contracts with to ask they and the agencies become members.

2) The controversy about a new Care Management organization in Erie County continues.  People are still not informed about the facts.  Also there is still a large FUD factor involved.  We have no choice but to go into managed care for behavioral health.  We have to do this in a manner that the state agrees with while still keeping the control and accountability here in the county.  It appears we need to show the unity I spoke of at the Governor's Listening Tour on Medicaid.

3) I need a way to promote the reading of this blog.  While it is mirrored on the Yahoo Geocities and 360 sites  and listed in Technorati, I know that not many people know it is out there.  I think I have to change the signature on my email to either include the blog address or the Technorati site.  That might mean losing the link to PMHCA or DBSA or both.  I'll also have to see how easy it is to see the links on MySpace.  and I need to add them to Hi5.  Soon I will need to get something real on the mental-health-advocate.us site too.  So much to try to do.