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| Posted at: 8/1/2010 |
| Headline: Report from Mark O |
| Expire Time: 8/1/2010 |
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Legislative Report
This article is a little different from other informational ones I have sent you as the Legislative Vice-President of VSCSW. I wanted to share with you some of the process I have been through in my journey in the legislative arena, as well as other areas. I recently attended a conference in New York sponsored by the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work, “Myth, Meaning, and Reality,” which moved me. In this conference there was a lot of discussion about the economy, the political impact of the past eight years, and how we as therapists sat by and allowed this to happen. Samuel Andrews, a clinical social worker and mental health advocate, pointed out that clinicians must, in part, take responsibility for accepting the policies that have led to the current economic and political situation we now live in. We talked at this provocative conference about how we implicitly have been a part of this problem, losing our focus and being a part of the problem by overspending, intolerance, and indifference to the wars and economics disaster. The past eight years of political decisions also resulted in such invasions to our profession as the right to privileged communication that includes the Patriot Act, the privacy holes in HIPPPA, almost destroying the HITECH bill, and, finally, almost losing the privileged communication as guaranteed in Jaffee v. Redmond. All of this reminded me of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, “Our lives begin to end when we become silent about things that matter.”
An example of ‘speaking up’ occurred in Virginia when VSCSW tracked and stopped the autism bill that failed and would have excluded us as capable of providing the diagnosis and treatment of autism in Virginia. This plan, of course, would have ultimately increased the cost the state government would have had to pay out in the treatment of these oh-so-complex cases, often reimbursed through Medicaid. Autistic children deserve access to the services of LCSWs who have the knowledge to pull in the variety of resources needed.
Another example of speaking up was my conversation with Governor Timothy Kaine on the effects of cutting social workers from the public school system. I told him that I didn’t believe that we could have fair and equal public education in Virginia without the school social workers. He was on his way to budget discussions and indicated appreciating my feedback. In the end there was some bail out money but the responsibility for where the cuts would be made was the responsibility of each school system. I have heard that we have lost a large number of school social workers. So speaking up doesn’t always lead to getting what you want, but not speaking up surely means the chance of affecting decisions is much lower.
We have work to do. I have been pondering the sad fact that Virginia’s public spending on mental health is one of the lowest in the United States. Managed care co-pays are increasing and reimbursement rates are shrinking. But in addition to that there are fundamental problems with the way health care is delivered in our country. I attended the National Academy of Practice Forum last week where I heard policy experts explain that the system as we now know it has forced a state of providers who are exhausted and keeping our collective heads down. This contributes to the creation of health care “silo” where the communication between providers is minimal or non-existent. We need to have better communication across health care services. As LCSWs, we are in the best position to focus on improving these relationships. We can help other providers understand the psychological meaning of patient problems and behavior and promote more empathic attitudes toward them. Many providers in our current system are too busy to have the genuine relationship with clients and patients but, more importantly, they don’t know how to think about the whole person. LCSWs are in a great position to break down the fragmented treatment that ‘silos’ lead to. Better communication is also seen as one of the central issues in the Obama administration’s efforts to create a “healthier” health care system.
As I reflect on my work with the legislative issues in Virginia, I am struck by how fortunate I am to share this journey with such a fine human being as Alice Kassabian. In the past three years Alice has joined me in Virginia providing tremendous support on my committee in addressing the many legislative issues that have arisen over the past four years. The significance of the journey I have taken in this process, and the relationship I have developed with Alice, has been immeasurably valuable to my development as a clinician and a person. Alice has the wisdom of her 50 years of practice and the compassion for all that is almost unique in my experience. She presented a paper at the AAPCSW Conference on her personal experience as the first generation of Armenian children born into a race that was all but extinguished by Turks and Kurds in a terrible example of a jihad, an eradication of a race due to spiritual differences. Alice embodies the ability to have compassion even for those who might wish to destroy us. Thank you, Alice, for your strength of character and your commitment to the profession of social work…and for your kindness along the way.
This reflection may help explain my goals as Legislative Vic-President: to work towards improving relationships with NASW, the Virginia Psychological Association, and the Virginia Psychiatric Association; to fight for stronger regulations and laws which allow access to clinical social work treatment, including the elimination of exemptions for generic social work; and to make clinical social work values part of our health care and state government systems whenever possible. I appreciate your support of these goals more than I can say, and welcome your thoughts on these issues.
Mark O’Shea, LCSW,
Legislative Vice-Chair
markoshea2@aol.com
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