"What's Update" National Shattering Silence Social Impact Report for 2022
Published on December 21, 2022 by Executive Director
We are pleased to present our Social Impact Report for 2022 which can be found here.
Our fiscal sponsor, Open Collective Foundation, has asked us to answer 4 questions:
- What did you accomplish during 2022? Please see NSSC Social Impact Report for 2022.
- How did you use money? Please see the Budget tab on the Open Collective page for NSSC.
- What challenges did you face during 2022? What did your Collective learn? How did you change or grow? While our Coalition has been through some challenging and tough times – health issues, personal crises, and volunteer turnover which is always a problem when so many of us have loved ones who are unable to access treatment – despite all of this, we have managed to keep steering our Coalition in the right direction, continually training and networking with our members, advocating both nationally and at the state level, all with one common goal: to build together a world in which people with serious brain illnesses can receive equitable, compassionate, collaborative treatment and support that enables them to live their best lives. We learned through networking with members all over the country that we are able to help one another by talking about what is working in our respective states and what isn't, what we have been able to accomplish and what we haven't. For example, in Maine, where we have been working on strengthening our AOT program, we have gained knowledge from other states already using AOT that has helped us convince legislators in Maine to pass legislation in 2022 that pays the legal fees associated with enrolling a patient in our AOT program encountered by hospitals and agencies our AOT program. See page 27 of our Social Impact Report to learn how we changed or grew. "In 2022, our Coalition added 52 new members, a percentage increase of 16% over last year, bringing our committed alliance to now just over 400 individuals, families, professionals and organizations. This year, the number of individuals who joined us increased by 8% and organizations by 148% relative to 2021.
We strengthened our core internal teams, adding 2 new dedicated members to our Steering Committee, Jack Wood and Ronnie Martorello, to help guide our overall vision, 8 new members to our Blogging Committee so we can step up our efforts to educate the public, and 3 new members to our Policy Action Committee to further amplify our voices in the political arena under the guidance of our newly appointed passionate and tireless Advocacy Mentor, Leslie Carpenter." - What are your plans for 2023? Anything exciting coming up? Please see page 34 in our Social Impact report where we summarize our goals for next year or below:
1. Support and accelerate our mission by soliciting corporate sponsors.
2. Secure grant funding to a) plan annual conference/NSSC Hill Day to educate members and meet with representatives in DC or at home offices; b) host a symposium inviting experts from around the country to discuss the need to reclassify serious mental illnesses as medical illnesses; c) create and implement a national marketing campaign to address social injustices and educate the public on SBDs; and, d) hire a strategic marketing and public relations company with lived experience to run our marketing, communications, social media and public relations.
3. End blatant discrimination against those with SBDs by continuing our work on repealing federal IMD Exclusion as well as encouraging individual States to request IMD Waivers (e.g., as currently doing in State of Maine).
4. Accelerate our efforts to reclassify serious mental illnesses as serious brain disorders by finalizing our Position Statement on the urgent need for the reclassification and on boarding a Medical Advisor to assist in our efforts in Q1 of 2023.
5. Further amplify our voices by continuing in our efforts to collaborate with other like-minded organizations on similar missions as we are stronger together and can affect more sustainable and meaningful social change.
6. Extend our educational reach, ramp up our blogging to two times a month, cross posting to both LinkedIn Articles and Medium, the largest blogging platform in the world.
7. In response to preventable tragedies, such as Mark Rippee and Gabe DaMour, happening everyday all across America, establish an Emergency Action Committee to write OpEds.