Your Voice Can Save Mental Health Services – Free NAMI Advocacy Training
Your voice is needed to explain to our legislators that New York cannot recover without addressing mental health, as well as criminal justice and crisis response reform. NAMI-NYS’s Legislative Advocacy Week for Western New York leaders is March 8-12th. We need your help now.
Join our online NAMI Smarts for Advocacy training on Thursday, March 4, at 7 – 8 p.m. To attend, register here to learn about our legislative issues and how we can most effectively tell our stories to bring about change. More information about this valuable training and other advocacy resources can be found at: https://www.nami.org/Support-Education/NAMI-Programs/NAMI-Smarts-for-Advocacy This training will get you up to speed on NAMI’s NYS legislative agenda and help you effectively deliver our message to our legislators.
This is a critical time: budget and policy decisions are being made now at the state level for 2021. Events of the past year have impacted our collective mental health and led to unprecedented demand for behavioral health services. The ramifications of COVID-19 are also wreaking havoc on our mental health system. Desperately needed services are now endangered by proposed budget cuts and freezes. We also need to advance crucial reforms to transform the criminal justice system and ensure that mental health crises are met with a mental health response. Our legislators need to hear from us now.
What comes next, after the NAMI Smarts for Advocacy training?
During the week of March 8-12, we invite you to be part of the meetings being scheduled with our legislators. Register today to be part of our Zoom online legislative meetings after the training! After you register, you will receive an email detailing the meetings with Western, NY legislators. Once you confirm you can attend a specific meeting, you will receive a Zoom link for that meeting.
