 Major sponsors for Abledon On Air are Green Mountain Support Services, Washington County Mental Health, Alai Israel. Additional sponsors include Geffen Foods Israel, Osam Foods Israel. Major media sponsors for Abledon On Air include Parkchester Times, Muslim Community Report, Associated Press Media Editors, U.S. Press Corps, Domestic and International. Welcome to this edition of Abledon On Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the different label in Vermont and beyond. On this part two of Mental Health Awareness Day, what you're about to see are speeches from Governor Phil Scott and Lieutenant Governor David Zuckerman and others. Let's take a look at this. It's a pleasure to introduce someone down here. Just slipped out from the House Health Care Committee, which is so packed with people actually, half the people are spilled out into the hallway. Commissioner Sarah Squirrel, who I think is on her way down here, was just up presenting and then the committee will be hearing any folks who are here for Mental Health Advocacy Day and so on. But, you know, on my way, well not actually on my way in because I couldn't read and drive, but I happen to be reading this article in the December issue of Counterpoint, just randomly, this morning, and I came across this article in it that said, Reflections on 25 Years of Advocacy. I thought, wow, that's fascinating, one of the worlds out. Talking about somebody who said, and that was where she began to understand the power of that and became, through all those years since then, as a leader in peer advocacy on the psychiatric scene, survivor movement from that time. The State Standing Committee for Adult Mental Health Services, who was on the Vermont Psychiatric Survivors Board of Directors for so many years in those past 25, she can't even remember when she started, but recently retired as the chair, still remains active and sort of, you know, trying to calm down a little bit in all of her levels of activities, still on the CCIL, the Alyson Board, but an incredible leader and incredible force through all those years, so I am thrilled to have been asked to be the one to present this person with this year's Community Advocacy Award, which goes to, of course, Marty Roberts. Congratulations, and I so much appreciate this award, and I accept it on behalf of all of the folks with whom I've worked over the years, you folks in this room, active in the community, and people in the wider community, people who have spoken out, people who have advocated, people who have worked to bring us all health, inclusion, and participation. Marty and I first met many, many years ago at Central Vermont Medical Center as invasions. Yeah, so much. That's right. For 11 years, we're by Northwest Counseling and Support Services, NCSR Cognizant, and when I got up there, I was placed under involuntary commitment. I had no idea. I was told that I would get a ride back home if I quickly got up there. The CSS assumes that I was suicidal. I wasn't. I was highly anxiety, but I wasn't suicidal. It was not one evaluation, and excuse me, I was in Northwest Medical Center. Seven days in the ER on full display to everybody under armed guards, I've shared the pardon, deputies who believe I should not be there. I was suicidal to say they have no evaluations, and there are critical errors made by, I don't know if I can name names, number of critical errors as a display, patients that have transcripts of those, what people said, what they didn't, and yet nobody ever asked me. They just told me, and they left me there. On Friday, the NCSS psychiatrist came in. He told me to sit down. I wasn't going to sit down the way he said that. I stood, and he reamed me out for calling crisis so many times, but no mention of suicidality, and that's what I found on a board, high up in the room, little letters, suicide ideation, and so I assumed that that's why I was there, but nobody ever told me. It's been 17 months that I have my voice. I've been online. I've had 19 visits by law enforcement to my house, for welfare, safety checks. I've had nine rescues come to my house. I've had eight voluntary hospitalizations. I went into UDM Medical Center. I've severed ties with NCSS. I work with the Howard Center now, and thanks God for the Howard Center. NCSS did not follow processes. They were not professional, nor neither was Northwest Medical Center. Northwest Medical said I was cleared medically. They didn't ask me one question, nor did they talk to my providers. I have prolonged UT and met many medications to cause cardiac arrest for me, and that's a slight medical problem. I was suicidal in the spring because I was on a medication that made me suicidal, but I realized I was still calling crisis NCSS. That was my first mistake to call them. I called them and I kept calling and kept saying I was suicidal, but really what I had was anxiety. I got off the medication. It took three or four weeks to get the medication out of my system, but I just kept on saying I was suicidal when I really wasn't. However, because they never asked me, they never knew. The chair of deputies who were guarding me knew they didn't know why I was there, and when I was sent to Brattleboro after seven days with no 12-hour state-required evaluation at all and no initial evaluation as I stated. When I sent the nurses at Brattleboro continuously, I talked to them a lot and they continuously said we don't know why you were sent here. This has been a traumatic experience for me. It's 17 months out. My life is deteriorated. I had plans. I was going to refinance my house, go back to choir that started in mid-September. I had signed up for Seneca. I had a safety plan. I had a safety team. And yet the psychiatrist, the non-psychiatric care hospital said to me that... I mean, it was evident... She had made up her mind that I was going involuntary when I got on the little cell phone that NCFS gave me. That is not telemedicine. We had telemedicine in Alaska in their late 70s that was better than what they provided me. It should be a face-to-face two-way communication. Instead, she interrogated me. She told me she didn't trust me. At all. And that I was confusing her and that I was going involuntary. And I do believe that she had made up her mind before. I could go for months, so... So that negligence and dereliction of duty by Northwest Medical, Northwest Counseling Support and the non-psychiatric care environment when the commissioner states that even prisoners should go to the least restrictive environment. Tell me about... I had this printed out, but then I had... The petitioner wrote down that I was found at a bridge. She put this in the petition. That I was found by the sheriff at a bridge in South Hero. And I said that I was going to go off that bridge. Well, if the petitioner had been in South Hero, he would have known that the lake was dry. And there was no... The tallest bridge was maybe 15 feet off the dry lake bed. There was never any incident with the bridge. But somebody reading that who didn't know would think I was going to go off the bridge. And, of course, you're going to send the involuntary. There was no bridge. And there were... As I said, there were other critical errors made. There was no evaluation. And I think, as I said, my last statement would be that NCSS Northwest Medical and the non-psychiatric care committed suicide on me. Easier, or rather, yes, they committed suicide. More than I could have ever committed suicide on myself. I don't have a life. I have a voice. I use it online. And I will continue. Because I know that this happened to me. And, obviously, I know that this happened here. It happened and is happening now to people. Thank you. Great quote. The microphone doesn't work very well. Jack here. I do want to start off, brave enough to come up and talk about those instances that have happened to them personally. Let's give them a hand. Second of all, I do want to read a proclamation from the governor. And then I'll get into some of the things I want to talk about. This is from the governor, whereas one in five individuals are living with mental health conditions in the United States and whereas Vermont, like the rest of the nation, is addressing mental illness and substance use challenges by combining effective promotion, prevention, treatment, and recovery support, focusing on strength and promoting resilience and whereas the health well-being and quality of life of all Vermonters is impacted by these chronic, yet treatable health conditions and virtually all Vermonters know someone in their network of family or friends who are affected and whereas Vermont mental health organizations continue to educate the public and lawmakers about the effects of mental illness and substance abuse and the value of treatment and long-term recovery, building capacity for trauma-informed care and best practice intervention and support for people living with developmental disabilities and whereas Vermont's mental health advocacy today is designed to remind all Vermonters that mental health and substance abuse conditions can respond to proper and timely intervention present recovery support services including the support from peers who have had successful recovery experiences and that people living with developmental and intellectual disabilities are equal members and willing contributors of our communities. Now therefore, I, Phillip E. Scott, Governor, hereby proclaim January 29, 2020 as Mental Health Advocacy Day in Vermont. That's good. Thank you very much and as Peter has mentioned, I'm the new old guy. I had this physician 15 years ago and I've got to tell you, when you have these positions, you go back and you think about your career. Never thinking you're going to be back of course, but you go back and think about your career. When you're thinking about your career, you think about the best positions you've ever had in your career and I've had a lot of positions in my career. The reason when I was going back and thinking, you know what, being Secretary of Human Services is the best and most rewarding experience I ever had and I never expected to get a phone call I couldn't be back here. So you just reflect and say, I wish I would have savored that experience. I wish I would have had more of that experience and here I am with that opportunity and the reason why is because we all struggle in life. We all struggle with various things in life and the one thing that we always have is help sometimes. Now a lot of our monitors don't have friends or family that can help them. This agency, the agency of Human Services and what you do and all the organizations especially in the mental health field, what you do are those friends. You know, you hear often times nowadays that government is the enemy and in the last 15 years I've heard more and more of that. I don't buy that. Government is a friend in many instances especially in what we do here at Human Services. You know, the issues that we grapple every day are complex and we've got to be available to respond to the most vulnerable of our monitors and work together in order to do that response. As a community and state partners, advocates, peers and family members we must all commit and continue to work together to ensure a strong mental health system of care. I have told department heads a couple of things. One, bad news can't wait. And two, good news can't wait. So, you know, I've instilled that in the agency that bad news can wait. So I can't wait. So I want to talk about bad news and some good news as we move forward. First the bad news because it can't wait. We've got some challenges here in Vermont that we need to address. Wait times in EDs, and I just heard about a story about this. Wait times in EDs for both adults and children and youth are unacceptable. We need to do better. Current friends and suicide rates in Vermont that are higher than the United States rates we need to do better there. Or the growing sense of hopelessness and despair that many of our young people and older Vermonters grapple with is something that we need to do better. And I've got to tell you this shocked me when I saw some of the reports on the youth in Vermont and the pessimism about their future. It just, it really does sort of hit you when you read about that and take what is going on here. The agency in the administration that clearly underscored the urgent and important need to strengthen our mental health system in Vermont. We've committed to forge a path to ensure fiscal stability to the Brattle World Retreat. You've heard a lot in the news lately about the Brattle World Retreat. We are under discussions with them to put some fiscal stability into the Brattle World Retreat. 12 new level one beds and the development of a 16-bed difficult secure residential facility are underway. Investments in suicide prevention efforts and working with our community mental health agencies to strengthen our proactive community crisis efforts for children, youth, and families through the mobile response scheme. And this is one of the things we're going to experiment in Rotland with mobile response schemes. But, you know, there's a lot more work that needs to be done. And we must look strategically at the future of our mental health system. I've said this over and over again as we need to look forward and where do we want to be in the next few years? And we must rethink the system of care and move towards a system where mental health and health care are integrated as we move forward in this effort. DMH, the Department of Mental Health's 10-year plan outlines a framework to begin to achieve this and improve quality and access to care for the modern. As I've always said, we have to keep and then this is something else that I tell the department heads within the agencies and we have to keep our foot on the gas and we can't let up. This is hard work, but we're stronger together working together and it's an honor to rise up to the challenges facing our system of care and working side by side with all of you to strengthen it. So, thank you very much. I really appreciate the time. The most significant game-free funding is to say that as you travel through the State House today, State Government, and most of them are going to say some version of this. Yeah, we really need people in crisis who can work alongside their clients. We support the work we value it. But the question I want each of you to ask those people is this, okay, then what are you going to do about it? Okay? To value the work and to value the existing system when we know there's so much work to do to build and strengthen and improve it so that we can improve and help people's lives. So, that is the question I'm asking each of you to ask your legislators, what are you going to do about it? I have to say on a personal note, this is the last year I'll be here in this capacity. I'll be running for re-election because I'm running for the 10th Governor. So, it's my last chance to say to you that ultimately none of this is about the legislators who are here today. Our work is only based on improving the lives of people in this room. So, when you talk to legislators, they act like they're too busy sometimes to talk to you. Their work is here to further the benefit of your lives and make sure they hear that loud and clear, listen to what they're going to do to support you and make sure that when you see legislators like the Speaker and Senator Kitchell, Kitty Toll, the Chair of the House Committee, Anne Pugh, Ginny Lyons and a number of the other champions of the issues that you're here today, for those people who have taken action and done something, they're the ones, give them a quick thumbs up and thank you and encourage them to do so more. Thank you so much. You don't want to say anything? Jane is very shy. Talk as loud as my voice will allow me out of the way early in the session. It's in my failure to drive an hour or two or more home. Diane and I have been roommates for years. And so, in addition to all of her incredible work during the session and any of the books open, minding each other for also that at Yama's pouring over the floor. You know, things I'm not supposed to say but I do. There's so many things about all of your details of work in between every interview. This year and actually during the game I learned one half of the survey I could joke at other remarks. I just want to say that you've heard me say experiences are experiences that you don't have. Whether it be the two legislators that I just mentioned and honored who's great. There's some other legislators who have direct firsts. In our society, there's a lot we don't know. We know a little bit. And this is to really reinforce the Senate's remarks to which I'm no longer a policymaker than the Governor. But I was for 18 years. I'm going to say we inaction for your knowledge that you can contribute to this process. I really want to emphasize this because the joke I often tell is that the whole reason I ran to be the Lieutenant Governor is so that I would have one staffer because as legislators they have zero. They have zero staffers to do research, to do constituent outreach, to do anything for that. It's schedule now. They are trying to juggle their life outside just not an old way. That's a real amount of money that you don't have to live on. And so they have another job. So they're juggling a lot. Nation, in this building, are for these issues is still limited to those few people and others who are advocating for lots of other things, lots of other needs that are needed in this state. Which to be perfectly honest is often less frequently than they all were. We legislators get two or three both less than what a vibrant democracy would have. I'm here as a chief but how many people in this room in the last year have talked to your legislators or all of your legislators? Additional sponsors include Geffen Foods Israel, Osam Foods Israel. Major media sponsors for Ableton on Air include Justice Times, Muslim Community Report, Associated Press Media Editors, US Press Corps, Domestic and International.