Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Into the Fold is part of the Texas Podcast Network, the Conversations Changing the World, brought to you by the University of Texas at Austin. The opinions expressed in this podcast represent the views of the hosts and guests and not of the University of Texas at Austin. Hi. Welcome to into the Fold, the Mental health Podcast. I'm your host, Ike Evans, and today we're delighted to bring you episode 167, the purpose of policy work. In a divisive time, I really try.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: To focus on what I can control and what I can't control, which is why I really find a lot of value in this work, because what I can control is talking to people about mental health, talking to people about substance use, talking to people about what would and wouldn't help Texans. And that is something I can control.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: So another presidential election is now behind us.
I don't know about y'all, but I could really use some perspective.
In today's episode, we're diving into the unique stresses and rewards of policy work. Even or especially during an election year as divisive as this one has been. We will discuss strategies for maintaining resilience and the deeper purpose behind policy work, even in challenging times. Today I'm joined by Alison Moore Bolware, Director of Policy for the Hogg foundation, and Lisette Galvan, Policy Director for NAMI Texas. They're here with us today to share insights on how to navigate the stress of policy work and why this work remains essential. Allison and Lisette, how are y'all doing today?
[00:01:41] Speaker C: I'm doing well this morning.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Same. I've got my coffee, so we're off to a great start already.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Okay, so the election is over.
Some of the if you don't mind nonsense is still going on.
And I thought that, although certainly we want the conversation to relate to what has just taken place, I think more broadly, you live in a world even within just this one state can be a very challenging climate for trying to accomplish anything.
So in a way, you've had the experience of dealing with setbacks and disappointments, things not happening fast enough. And so I think what our listeners are most curious about is why, what is it that kind of still motivates, energizes you and kind of what things you are able to do to kind of stay resilient. And if you have any recent examples of that.
[00:02:49] Speaker C: Yeah. So for me, I would say, you know, politics was never something. Or policymaking was never something that I was going to get into. I was a teacher and educator for nine years, and at that time, you know, seeing the struggles that my students were facing and not having a social worker on campus advocating for us to hire somebody to help our students, it didn't happen in the two years as I advocated. And so that's what pushed me out of the classroom and into grad school and coming into this space to really make a difference. And that's really my driver every day is thinking about my babies. I know that they're now in high school and middle school, but thinking about the change that we can make for future generations is really what pushes me every day to continue this hard work.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: I love that. Yeah, I'd say for me, similar to Lisette, I didn't think that I was going to go into policymaking, but in my first year of grad school as a social work student, I was tasked with working with low income folks at the Travis County Family Support Services Department. And every single client that I met with was not able to access what I saw as necessary safety net services because of really strict eligibility requirements. Medicaid, tanf, which is also known as welfare, and other programs that should be, in my opinion, there to help Texans weren't available for these really low income people. So that made me go into policy work. And now that I've been in this for 10 years, which is really wild to think about, I've seen that we need people in this space that are looking at things from a more holistic landscape perspective instead of trying to fix things through band aids, through a program or a single single piece of legislation. And so I'm really passionate about just thinking about it more holistically to try to improve all of Texas experience with mental health and just improve Texas as a whole. Of course we want everyone to have access to services, and I think that's what is my continued driver for sure.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: Okay. So I work in communications, and lately it seems that I keep being given opportunities to get on my soapbox about communications and how there are so many ways that it undermines people's mental health. There's too much communication in certain respects. And so thinking more particularly about challenges specific to this election year that we're in.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: How do you manage all. Just all the information that comes at you, you know, you can't get away from it.
And how is it that. And you work in policy already?
So what ways do you have to kind of mentally buffer from the news, all the information flood? I just, I just love to know your thoughts on that.
[00:06:05] Speaker C: Sometimes I limit my social media intake. I think that it's important to one, we grew up in an era where social media didn't exist first for our generation, right. As millennials. And so we easily got into being on MySpace, being on Facebook, constantly telling people what we were up to. And so as I've grown up into my late 30s, I really distanced myself from being activ on social media because I think that our algorithms really drive, you know, whatever we're looking into. So that's one way of doing it. But also practicing mindfulness meditating really helps me with my stress levels and not getting overwhelmed when there's so much noise. I do remember, you know, last year feeling that way and I gave myself a quite a few distance from social media because of that. And that's where it really started to be a part of my routine of just limiting myself. So I believe I haven't done it myself, but I believe, like, Instagram has a certain time limit that you can start putting for yourself. So after, you know, a few hours a day or what it could be for you, hopefully a few minutes, you start limiting yourself so that you're not triggering all of that noise into your system.
[00:07:32] Speaker B: Totally. I feel the same way. And Lisette and I are both social workers, so we can speak to this. But social workers always talk about boundaries, talk about self care. And I know that for other people, maybe social media doesn't affect them as much, or maybe reading the news or following the news is a hobby for them. But for us, this is our day job. This is what we're spending all day thinking about. So for me, I really unplug from this at night.
Similar to what Lizette said. I actually this past year, because I had a baby, I decided that I didn't want to doom scroll on top of that about the election. So I've consciously been off of social media since June, which has been challenging in some ways. But for me, it's made a big difference not to read as much about opinions on the election.
Also, I really try to focus on what I can control and what I can't control, which is why I really find a lot of value in this work, because what I can control is talking to people about mental health, talking to people about substance use, talking to people about what would and wouldn't help Texans. And that is something I can control. And that's why, Lisette, I always love seeing what y'all are doing at nami, because again, you're helping give people things that they can actually make a difference in, whether it's going to a NAMI walks, going to a Support group, things that people can actually do to get them out of kind of the cyber space of politics. Because I think if we're all just focused behind the screens and not actually taking any action, it can be really hard. And I think that's part of what people are struggling with this year.
[00:09:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree with you on that. And yeah, that's where I'll stop, actually.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: So one thing that I'm curious about is, you know, during an election year when you. When you find yourselves in mixed company.
So that can include even people who are apolitical or at least people who don't know very much at all.
[00:09:36] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:09:37] Speaker A: About. About the world in which all operate. Does that get any more challenging or complicated during an election year that you've noticed?
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I actually just had a conversation with someone that was pretty challenging, to be honest, because they felt differently than I did. And I was trying to explain to them how who wins the election really does affect my day to day work, that we are still seeing some of the ramifications from previous administrations because of the changes that were made at the federal level and that those things, things do impact Texans. And so it is challenging sometimes. But what I really try to do is listen. And I honestly try to remind myself that not everyone is in this space, you know, all day like I am, and try to keep that in mind.
But it can definitely be challenging. I also try to remember that one of the joys of our country is that people have differing opinions and that I care about keeping that. And so I try to keep that in mind. But it can definitely be challenging in the personal space. Honestly, professionally, we can find a lot of things to align with. On mental health, that is really bipartisan.
[00:10:56] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree. On the mental health side, it's very bipartisan. They're great champions on both sides of the aisle. But thinking personally on my own experiences with individuals during election years, I'll say that similarly, as Allison I've had a very tough conversation with somebody really close to me and it wasn't on actual political views. It was political involvement and just how distanced they are. They go vote, but it's not something that they have conversations with others, with their neighbors, and just how important it is to not just think about who's on the ballot for president or governor or senator. It's really also school districts, city council, county commissioners, and just how disengaged people people really are on the local level is disheartening because on the local level they do so much and we have closer access to those elected officials to have conversations about what's really happening in our community and our neighborhoods, whether it be, you know, with Austin water or the trash or recycling getting picked up. There's just so many different issues that I feel like if we're not actively involved across the continuum of our elected officials and what they're doing, they're not hearing from their constituency to know what needs to be fixed next.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Right. And both of us have been staffers, so I think that also lends itself to it, because before I was a staffer, I didn't realize how much legislators could actually weigh in on and effect. And I know you worked both for a city council person and a state legislator, right?
[00:12:39] Speaker C: Yeah, I did. And with. In both instances, I worked with constituents. I helped them navigate the system, whether it was with a state agency or a city department. And I was there as an advocate for them on their behalf. And I think that's important for people to understand and know that that's available in every office.
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Yeah. I like to remind people that the Capitol building itself is literally their building. And I think that sometimes it feels intimidating to people. And so one of the things that Lisette and I both do, but in different ways, through our roles, is help people feel more comfortable to go to the Capitol and engage and share their stories and feel more comfortable to engage and reach out to their legislators or their local folks. Because I agree, it's kind of this idea that people think that it doesn't matter who's in all those positions, but really the local level, they're deciding budgets, they're deciding whether bond dollars are going to go to school, mental health, or things like that that people don't always think of.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: Okay, so touching on the theme of what can be resilience enhancing about this work, so I thought I'd give the two of you an opportunity to kind of bolster each other. So I challenge both of you to tell the other about a recent awesome experience that you had that you don't think that. That she already knows about. And so, Lisette, let's start with you.
[00:14:11] Speaker C: So recently I went to NAMI Kerrville, and I met with our affiliates out there.
And one of the things that we were talking about was just the political landscape in their area and how their representative, Andrew Murr, was retiring. And they were disheartened to hear this because. Or to know this, rather, because he's worked there, worked in the legislature for so many years, and has really been a true advocate for mental health and substance use disorder. But the way that I tried to spin what they were saying and to see a positive is really that they're going to have a new member coming into the legislature in January, and that's an opportunity to really show them what mental health is like, what we're working on, what we've been working on, and what are the needs in their communities. Like, they were telling me that, you know, they don't have enough providers at their local mental health authority, and it's mainly for children and not adults because it's a retiring community. And so just having them work on their own thoughts and their own experiences of what they're seeing and the challenges and positives of their community and how they can educate this new member. Coming in with that means that they might be building a new mental health champion and this person might care just as much as Andrew Murr did to work with them and have that collaborative community work done together.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: I love that. I love that.
I think reframing it as a way to educate a new person is so helpful because I think it was a challenge this year to know that we were losing some big mental health champions.
Representative Price, Representative Allison, Representative Jeton, are all folks that have filed mental health bills in the past that aren't returning this next year. And as mental health stakeholders, of course, we care about that. So I love that reframing of what can you do to educate this person. And Representative, also, he was a big champion on substance use, so that is a loss. But I like that reframing.
I'll say a little bit of a different angle is that one thing folks don't always think about is how bills are implemented. And so once a bill passes, that's where a lot of folks, to be honest, kind of forget about what happens next. And I'd say one win that we've seen is that last year there was a bill that passed that created a new grant program for children's mental health services. And then when the rules were released, we saw that the bill, or, sorry, the rules were only for programs that served kids 13 and under. And all the. And all of us. I know, Lizette, you were in these conversations, too. But we all said, we need to let them know that we need this to be changed to 18 years of age rather than 13, to ensure that foster youth are included, to ensure that youth at risk of juvenile justice involvement are included, and that way more youth can be eligible for these types of programs. And we were successful, which was really neat. We saw that the rule did change from 13 to. To 18. And so I try to remind myself that that is a win and that way more kids could be served, way more programs would be eligible for this, for this grant because of input. And if folks hadn't reached out and let them know and made comments, then they may not have changed it at the agency level. So I don't know. Focusing on wins like that feels good, especially in a space where we don't know what will happen next session.
[00:17:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree completely.
And children's mental health in general, I'll say is definitely something that is growing in awareness at the legislature with the Children's Mental health strategic Plan and just seeing all of the recommendations and being a part of those conversations, how much everybody across the aisle, across the state really care about our children and improving the system that we currently have. And hopefully I my hope is to see the Smart Innovation grant to continue to grow beyond the 88th legislative session.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: Exactly. And I agree that's another way to kind of help us feel resilient is to know that there has been a huge reduction in stigma on mental health at the Capitol since I was a staffer. Just seeing how people talk about it, how many more people file bills related to it, how open people are, both legislators and staff about it has been really cool. And I think that that's something that is a big win and something to kind of help us remember why we do this.
[00:19:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I agree.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: Okay.
So yeah, I just kind of. Let's just keep this going for anyone who might be listening, who might be considering and let's. Unless just assume that they already have some basic background in mental health already, but never really thought about doing policy work. I don't know what, what in your mind and feel free to kind of salt it with as many personal stories as you like that you just really enjoy about this work and enough to recommend it to somebody.
[00:19:39] Speaker C: I think. So you know, if they're wanting to do it on a personal level, the first thing that comes to mind is our NAMI smarts for advocacy classes. So my peer policy fellow and I teach a variety of modules. There are nine modules. The first is telling your story. We just recently taught Policymaking 101 and meet your policymaker. And in these classes we really try to teach people and understand the legislative process, how a bill becomes law and then how to reach out to their legislator and having those conversations and really trying to hone in on what they want to share with their legislator and what could help, what did help, what can help others and really bring hope and resiliency into that conversation. So not talking too much about the struggle itself, but how can we make the struggle become a positive outcome? And what does this legislator need to do? So at the end, they have to have an ask.
And it's really empowered individuals and it's beautiful to see at the end of these classes just how thankful and grateful they are for the opportunity and being able to learn how to use the tools that they have now when it comes to advocacy. And I'll say another thing too, is we're really trying to expand into the Latino community. So as a native Spanish and English speaker, because I learned both at the same time, it's always been a passion of mine to give opportunities or help and improve opportunities for the Latino community, especially knowing that the legislature, city council and commissioners, courts across the state have funds for interpreters and translators now, and knowing that we were able to translate our NAMI Smarts for Advocacy Day module and be able to provide that to the community. So most recently, we just taught a class in person in El Paso, and it was exciting, it was thrilling just seeing how many people wanted to actively engage and use their personal story for systemic changes.
Especially for a community that's very underserved and marginalized in our state, with not enough providers that speak Spanish, it's essential and critical for them to share their stories with their elected officials so that they see what the problems and the issues are on the community level. And hopefully it's my hope that one day we can translate this module into other languages and have teachers speak other languages and teach other communities how to advocate for themselves.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: That's really cool. Yeah, we I so many things. I think having things in other languages is so important, and Texas is so diverse, yet we don't always do that. And I think that sometimes advocacy work is hard for people to feel like they have time for. And so doing things in languages that people speak, plain language, so where it's not confusing and full of jargon is really important.
When I think about people getting involved in mental health policy, I was actually going to say too, that people should get involved with nami because NAMI makes it really easy for people that are interested in mental health to be engaged to have clear things that they can ask for, which is really helpful. As Lizette and I know as staffers, it's really helpful when people can come in and give direct recommendations, especially if they're connected to a story.
Often people want to share their stories, but they don't have a recommendation or a bill or a budget item. And so that can be hard as a staffer because you are of course, wanting to give people time and space to share their story. So as much as possible, when people are wanting to engage in advocacy, having direct ask. So NAMI is great for that. I also think if people are interested in specific issue areas, looking for organizations that work in that policy space and you don't need to recreate the wheel, pretty much any issue that you're interested in probably already has a group working on it or a coalition already working on it, which I think is really important to not feel like you have to recreate something.
Often we'll have people reach out to us kind of pitching a policy idea, and nine times out of ten I can point them to someone who's already working on it. And so I think that's really great because legislators, they don't have a lot of time. Something we haven't mentioned is that they meet every other year. So the time is really short. It's 140 days. So having ideas that already have consensus is really helpful.
I think if you want to go into this space professionally, I would say my advice is to do an internship somewhere.
I think interning at the Capitol during a session really taught me what this work looked like. I learned that I wanted to be the person who was outside of the Capitol. But coming into the Capitol, I so respect staffers. They are really doing amazing work, you know, at the taxpayer dime and often under underpaid or not paid and really doing this work for extended hours during the legislative session. But I saw that my strengths and my interest was more and that I wanted to be someone who came from outside the Capitol. And so I would say do an internship, volunteer, see what interests you. Some folks like the hustle and bustle of campaigns or of the Capitol, and other folks are more interested in doing research and writing and training and things like that. So I encourage people to try to find what they're interested in rather than feeling like they need to make an entire career shift.
If you're interested in doing this professionally.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: Okay, so as far as resources that you know that listeners can check out, I have a few. First of all, that I think everyone should check out the Hog foundation website, the policy engagement section, which is under what We Do. If you just want to learn kind of a lot in fact, about mental health policy work, I humbly put that forward as a suggestion. Also, I can't miss this opportunity to just to give a friendly heads up that as you're listening to this, we are very close to launching our all digital mental health guide.
And so our ambition is that maybe as good a resource for a non specialist audience about the mental health system in Texas as you will find any place.
But is there just anything else that for those who are curious about your work that you could lead people to?
[00:27:01] Speaker C: Yeah. So if you go to namitexas.org and then hover over get involved, you'll see an option for ACT Advocacy Action center. Click there. And we have different tabs. We have our public policy platform already published. You'll see previous years as well. We also have the Vote for Mental Health tab. And there we have our voter guide. So for this past election cycle, we actually had a really high engagement of all of these new candidates that were on the ballot that were excited to fill out our voter guide and tell us what they thought on mental health. So I thought that that was a really big positive. And when this year just having that involvement of new candidates, we had involvement of incumbents too. And that was great as well. But it's nice to see the variety across the aisle of participation and engagement in interest and mental health. And also if you go to Namitexas Quorum Us, you can sign up for our policy newsletters or action alerts. Any advocacy engagements that might happen, we'll post them. We'll send it out in an email blast via this website. So please sign up and we hope to hear from you. We're always looking for stories. Every month we highlight different topics. We do a storytelling series just to really align what's going on and what's happening to the different bills or we might need storytellers at the Capitol. We've had plenty of storytellers during our Texas Mental Health Capitol Day, which I'm really excited to announce. So save the date. We're kicking off Mental Health awareness month on May 1st with our capital Day. So that's our Advocacy Day where hoping to bring buses from different cities, last session we brought two buses from Houston, one from San Antonio, Dallas, Corpus Christi. And we also were able to help some participants fly out from El Paso to come to the Capitol.
[00:29:10] Speaker B: That's amazing. I love that we as hog don't have advocacy days, but we love promoting all of our grant partners advocacy days and nami. That's, that's. I'm so glad to hear y'all have the date already. So folks, y'all should save that date. Also, if you're a social worker, there's Social Work Advocacy Day that the national association of Social Workers Texas puts on so I encourage you to, if you're a social worker, to come to that. That's always a great and informative day. Very fun for folks. And also I, I know we talked about social media being sometimes challenging for your mental health, but for advocacy purposes, I do encourage you to follow groups on social media during the legislative session because they will share action alerts, especially groups that are really involved in the Capitol. Honestly, that's the best way to stay involved is to look at their social media, see what they're talking about, see what action items they have, and get on their email lists. Some other resources if you want to learn more about what happened last session. I know Nami y'all have a legislative session summary. So does hog. We even have a recording of our webinar from last summer. It's an hour long, so if you just want to get a feel for, hey, what happened last session? Like, what can we, what can I know about what already happened that's available? And of course I will plug, as Ike said, our mental health guide. That website will be launching before the legislative session and, and that shares a lot of information about every state agency that plays a major part in mental health or substance use, as well as gives you a landscape look at what are the policy issues. And we really try to see it as an educational document. So we'd love for you to take a look at it if you're interested in policy and mental health advocacy at all.
[00:31:08] Speaker C: As someone who uses the guide very often, I highly encourage everybody to check it out. It's very useful and resourceful when trying to learn about the different topics within mental health.
[00:31:20] Speaker B: Thanks for that Plug Lisette. I did give her $5 before this.
[00:31:24] Speaker C: Podcast to say that, you know, I'm going to Starbucks.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: Okay. Well, Alison Lisette, this has been a wonderful conversation.
Whoever may be listening, you're doing any kind of work in this space or anything adjacent. Hang in there. We all appreciate whatever it is that you're trying to accomplish in spite of whatever headwinds you might be facing.
And yeah, that should shine through, if nothing else from the conversation that we just had.
Thank you all so much.
[00:32:02] Speaker C: Thank you, thank you.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: Before we close, some important announcements. The Hogg foundation has just published its long awaited impact report.
It covers the last two years of major developments for the Hogg foundation and some of the most significant achievements of our grantee partners. Don't miss out. Visit Hogg utexas Edu impact to get it all right at your fingertips.
Another big deal as of this recording. We are mere weeks away from launching the new All Digital A Guide to Understanding Mental Health Systems and Services in Texas, or the Mental Health Guide for short.
Since 2012, we have maintained this comprehensive guide to the Texas policy environment, the different state agencies, and the major areas of policy concern that unite advocates, policymakers, mental health consumers, and, yes, the Haack foundation for Mental Health. We are pleased to announce that the Mental Health Guide is now a website. The URL is mhguide hogg utexas.edu. it is still in development with launch scheduled for early December of 2024. It is a major milestone for the Hogg foundation and our amazing policy unit. Be sure to check it out. So some guiding questions that we have dealt with during this episode, like why should we keep doing this work? Or what keeps us grounded and motivated as we advocate for change?
You've heard some really great ideas.
Focus on what you can control. Focus on wins. Try to keep your information diet spare and nutritious. I think one other takeaway from the conversation with Allison and Lisette is you can be sad and bewildered while still making time for the company of others, especially when that company is humorous or inspiring or invigorating. Regardless of how frustrated you might be with the political system or with election outcomes, there is someone or something out there that still needs you right now, and it would be a shame if you discounted just how enjoyable that someone or that something can be, even at a time like now. So that does it for this episode. We are so glad that you could join us. Production assistants by Daryl Wiggins, Kate Rooney and Anna Harris and thanks as always to the Hogg foundation for its support.
Transition Music by Steven Seibert if you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate and review into the fold on the podcast app of your choice. Just as taking care of ourselves helps us in being there for others, so it is as well that by supporting others we bolster our own resilience. Taking us out now is Anna's Good Vibes by our friend Anna Harris. Thanks for joining us.
