Faith Leaders please join NAMI and the Lindner Center of Hope for a half-day discussion designed to strengthen your understanding of the anatomy of addiction, the underlying causes of addiction (including mental health issues), and the role faith can play in re-establishing health and wellness through a restored connection with meaning in life.
 
Leaders in faith communities are often called upon to counsel individuals coping with addiction. This conference aims to increase understanding of the addictive brain and learn about resources in the community and through faith which will allow you to help your community.

For more information, connect to the LCOH web-site. 

Please help us out this Thursday, May 2nd by participating in a call-in and email day to the Ohio Senate.  This will be the kick-off of our "Change Your MIND Campaign".  We will be asking that Senators to change their

  Call-in Day is tomorrow- Thursday. We will be asking everyone to call:

• Senate President Keith Faber - 614-466-7584
• Senate Pro Tempore Chris Widener - 614-466-3780
• Senate Finance Chair Scott Oelslager - 614-466-0626
• Senate Finance Medicaid Sub. Com. Chair Dave Burke - 614-466-8049
• Your Senator (Find your Senator here)  

The following is the message for our Day of Advocacy:

Hello.  My name is _____________ and I'm a constituent of Senator _________ from (INSERT TOWN HERE). I know that President Faber has stated that the Senate will not be moving forward with expanding Medicaid, but I am calling you to say that I believe the Senate should change their minds.  I'm asking you to restore Medicaid expansion to the 14-15 biennial budget for the following reasons: 

To build your message, use information from the following quotes from Gov. Kasic's State of the State Address:

• "This money can provide health coverage for the poor, a great number of them who are working poor individuals who make less than $15,415. They can't afford health care. What are we going to do, leave them out in the street, walk away from them when we have a chance to help them?"

• "My personal faith in the lessons I learned from the Good Book, they like, run my life. I mean, I'm serious, they've very important to me. Not just on Sunday, but just about every day. I gotta tell you, I can't look at the disabled, I can't look at the poor, I can't look at the mentally ill, I can't look at the addicted and think about this."

• "I know it's controversial. I just want to take you one place. One day your son comes home, your daughter comes home, says, Mom, my brain's not working right-put it in your family. Put somebody that is in your family who becomes the wayward child. They come home one day, they can't get a job-put it on your doorstep, and you'll understand how hard it is."

 Mental Health Impact Short Story to Support One of These Messages:

• Medicaid expansion will make an enormous difference in the lives of those who struggle with holding down a job while battling depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders that make it difficult to cope with everyday life. 
• Many individuals living with a mental illness have difficulty maintaining full time jobs that pay well because such jobs are often demanding, stressful and do not provide flexibility during the work day to attend regular mental health appointments.  Most of these jobs do not offer health insurance.  Medicaid expansion will ensure that they receive the health and mental health services to maintain their job.
• Ensuring that those in need have access to Medicaid services, including mental and physical healthcare, will not only make it easier for Ohioans with mental illness to fulfill their job responsibilities, but it will improve the quality of their lives and the lives of those who love them.
• Medicaid expansion will mean that state funds and local levy dollars can be used in other ways to support recovery, such as housing assistance and education/vocational services. 
• Medicaid expansion will help young adults with mental health disorders.  Today they are required to transition out of Medicaid after the age of 19. Medicaid expansion provides a way for eligible young adults to continue receiving coverage.
•  

  By ensuring access to physical health care, many individuals with mental illness will no longer need to go to the emergency room to get their health care needs met.   Opposition to Medicaid expansion is purely ideological. The offer comes as part of the Obamacare law that tea party conservatives despise, and it means more federal-government deficit spending.  But turning it down changes nothing.  Obamacare isn't going away. Federal spending isn't going to be changed materially by Ohio's refusal to participate.  And the job of Ohio lawmakers is to serve Ohio, not to take a symbolic stand on federal spending and actually hurt the state in the process.  (Columbus Dispatch, April 28, 2013)   It is clear that the best path forward for individuals with behavioral health needs, as well as for Ohio, is expanding Medicaid and extending healthcare coverage to 275,000 Ohioans. Please  support restoring the expansion of Medicaid to the 14-15 biennial budget.       Thank you for your time, Terry Russell Executive Director NAMI Ohio

  NAMI Ohio   namiohio@namiohio.org www.namiohio.org 614-224-2700 or 800-686-2646

    

Dear Mental Health Advocate,

During the past few months, NAMI Ohio and our partners in health care have conducted one of the most intensive advocacy and education campaigns in history.  This project was to educate not only the Ohio House of Representatives but also the citizens of Ohio on the need for Medicaid expansion.

Although this amendment keeps the door open for Medicaid expansion and gives us an opportunity to try and convince the Senate that the Governor's proposal is the right thing to do, it falls short in guaranteeing and delays the expansion of health care services to 275,000 Ohio citizens who, with health care, could remain or become working tax-paying citizens.  For NAMI Ohio, it literally means the difference between life and death for many of those we represent.

We want to thank all of you for your persistent advocacy by contacting your individual representatives.  NAMI Ohio wants to especially thank Jon Allison, the leader of the Ohio Alliance for Health Transformation (Alliance for Health Transformation), for his leadership in organizing the extremely diverse coalition of health care and business communities which convinced the House that Medicaid expansion needs to be discussed further. 

We also want to thank all the House members who voted in favor of the substitute budget, specifically Rep. Ron Amstutz (Wooster), Chairman of the House Finance Committee, who was instrumental in in allowing the amendment to proceed; Rep. Barbara Sears (Toledo) who introduced the amendment; Rep. Mike Foley (Cleveland) and Rep. Nickie Antonio (Cleveland) for garnering support during the House floor debate. 

As NAMI Ohio has stated throughout this unprecedented advocacy process, we cannot thank Gov. John Kasich enough for his unwavering commitment to Medicaid expansion.  He can also be extremely proud of his leadership team lead by Greg Moody, Director, Governor's Office of Health Transformation, Medicaid Director John McCarthy, Tracey Plouck, Director, Ohio Department of Mental Health, and Missy Craddock, Deputy Director, Ohio Department of Mental Health. 

NAMI Ohio would also like to thank all the leaders of the mental health and addiction services community for their leadership and work, especially Cheri Walter and her staff at the Ohio Association of County Behavioral Health Authorities and Hubert Wirtz and his staff at the Ohio Council of Behavioral Healthcare and Family Services Providers. 

Finally, I want you to know that there are preliminary discussions of putting forth a ballot issue that will give all citizens of Ohio the opportunity to vote on expanding Medicaid.  Hopefully Medicaid expansion will be approved through the legislative process but, because Medicaid expansion is so important, we must look at every avenue to ensure people who need this health care access are able to get it.

As always, thank you for your continuing support of those citizens of this state whose lives have been invaded by mental illness. 

Terry Russell, Executive Director

NAMI Ohio

DATE: May 8, 2013

TIME:  11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

LOCATION: West Lawn of the Ohio Statehouse 

The program for the event, which is cosponsored by NAMI Ohio and the Federation for Children's Mental Health, will focus foremost on eliminating, once and for all, the stigma of mental illness.  Individuals from across the life spectrum who "live the message" have been invited to "give the message".   In addition to these speakers sharing their stories of stigma and how they have overcome it, we will have several activities that will convey messages of resiliency, recovery and community support.

A number of tragedies over the past few years involving individuals with untreated mental illness has greatly heightened the stigma attached to mental illness.  We want to take advantage of Mental Health Month and Children's Mental Health Week to kick off the year of "Saying NO to stigma and YES to resiliency and recovery".  The goal of NAMI Ohio is to have all 50 NAMI Ohio affiliates and all 10 Parent Advocacy Connection regions, as well as, many of the Cosumer Operated Services.

Lunch of sandwiches, chips and bottled water will be available at the event.

Please call the office if you would like to carpool to this event.