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Advocacy Unlimited promotes peer support initiatives and fosters positive legislative action through our advocacy efforts. 

On this page, you will find resources to learn the fundamentals of legislative advocacy, as well as tools for communicating with your legislators. Below, you can check for upcoming events, action opportunities, and other ways to get involved!

How To Get Involved

Join our Legislative Peer Workforce Group Meeting to learn about our current advocacy efforts and contribute to the conversation! No commitment required – this is an opportunity to get involved or simply check us out. We meet virtually via Zoom each week. Click the button below to join us every Monday from 12-1 PM.

Join LPWG Weekly Zoom

Join our Peer Advocacy Network to learn from a variety of speakers on patient rights and advocacy. You will also have the opportunity to discuss any advocacy issues you are experiencing within this learning community. We meet virtually once a quarter. Click the button below to register and get meeting details.

Register for PAN

Upcoming Events

Meeting Minutes

Attendees 

Aaron Jackson, Kate Brown, Jennifer Henry, Charles Brown, Jeff Santo, Carl Mancini, Tom Burr, Hena Yakoob, Paul Downing, Tonya Patricia 

Minutes 

  • 2026 Legislation Update 
    • Carl stated that there haven’t been any updates since last meeting and is currently waiting for Rep. McCarthy Vahey and Rep. Dathan to send invites to stakeholders regarding potential meeting.  
    • Carl also mentioned that he spoke with CT Non-Profit alliance and Ben, their Director, will help to support our efforts. 
  • General Discussion 
    • No new topics were brought up, but Carl mentioned that the CT Non-Profit Alliance recently sent out their 2026 legislative agenda which included a number of items such as financial support for housing, review and asks for increases in Medicaid provider rates, and talks around caps on non-profit executive salaries 
  • Advocacy Resources Page Events Section 
    • The list of events to be added to events page was discussed  
    • Jen. Henry suggested adding the CT disability rights monthly meeting to the page.  
  • 2/20 Direct Mail Event 
    • Carl announced that the email communication went out via constant contact on Friday inviting community members to attend the event 
    • The communication that went out was reviewed 
    • Carl announced that it would be posted on social media as well this week 
    • The group briefly discussed the logistics for event 
      • How list of legislators will be created and divided 
      • What materials will be added to envelopes  
  • Review of letter to Legislators for Mailing Event 
    • Group members suggested that we add more regarding what Peer Support is 
    • Also suggested additional info regarding Title 20 or what our ask is even if it says that there currently isn’t legislation to vote on, but when there is we would appreciate your support 

Attendees 

Aaron Jackson, Kate Brown, Jennifer Henry, Fin Hirschoff, Charles Brown, Jeff Santo, Carl Mancini, Tom Burr, Hena  

Minutes 

  • 2026 Legislation Update 
    • Carl met with Dathan and McCarthy-Vahey, who want buy-in from other state peer support stakeholder organizations, whom they will reach out to. They will also reach out to the RBHOs. 
    • Dathan and McCarthy-Vahey support Title 20 inclusion 
    • Carl also spoke with Lesser and Gilchrest 
    • Concerns brought up about whether we’re still on a timeline to get legislation introduced this year 
  • Advocacy Resources Page Events Section 
    • Additions will go to group for review before adding to page 
  • 2/20 Direct Mail Event 
    • Name (Advocacy All-Stars Action Event) finalized 
    • Reviewed letter to go with infographic flyer 
      • Suggestions: 
        • Specifying what changes were made by DHMAS 
        • Settling on an ask for the letter 
        • Some attendees suggest adding other groups as signatories 
        • Counter-suggestion to use inclusive language instead of adding groups 

Attendees 

Aaron Jackson, Kate Brown, Jennifer Henry, Paul Downing, Fin Hirschoff, Charles Brown, Jeff Santo, Carl Mancini 

Minutes

  • Legislative advocacy update 
    • Carl expects to have a meeting this week with McCarthy-Vahey and Dathan’s offices, potentially with CCAR 
    • Plan is to utilize Dathan’s bill from last year, adding Title 20 inclusion 
  • RIPPLE report update 
    • Jeff has not received any responses to the report (sent to all state senators) 
    • Task force could be responsible for creating language to define peer support etc. 
  • Legislative advocacy resources page events
    • Reviewed list of potential event sources 
    • Work checking event lists will be split in two, checked monthly 
    • Carl will own updating the calendar 
    • Fin suggests in the future this could be a low-level admin task with a set of guidelines for which types of events to include 
    • Charles suggests we keep track of traffic to the page, to make sure the work updating the calendar is worth it, and suggests visiting that topic in six months 
  • Direct mail event 
    • Finalized promotional blurb for 2/20 event 

Attendees 

Thomas Burr, Jennifer Henry, Paul Downing, Fin Hirschoff, Ana Allen, Aaron Jackson, Carl Mancini, Charles Brown, Michaela Fissel 

Minutes 

  • Michaela has gotten an invitation to speak to a reporter about forced ECT in the state.  
    • The issue has drawn national attention to CT 
    • Other organizations may want to speak to the reporter as well 
    • Idea floated of using national attention on ECT to get votes on potential legislation 
    • Will put on next week’s agenda 
  • Event sources for advocacy page 
    • Added additional sources to draft list 
    • Question came up of adding nationally focused events; consensus is no 
    • Michaela voices concern about working with groups that haven’t explicitly come out in favor of peer support 
    • Working idea is to have each potential event approved initially, Fin suggests instead developing a guide the person updating the calendar can use (with the ability to ask for approval if they aren’t sure) 
  • Potential legislation 
    • McCarthy-Vahey and Dathan want to meet with Carl, Michaela, and CCAR soon 
  • Jeff Santo has published a report on peer credentialling changes and their impact 
    • Sent it to 35 legislators 
    • Should we think of a way to communicate this to the rest of the legislature? 

Attendees 

Jeff Santos, Charles Brown, Kate Brown, Fin Hirschoff, Aaron Jackson 

Minutes 

  • Bulk mail event 
    • Aaron suggested block of time when people could come in 
    • Kate suggests alternate tasks for people who don’t want to hand write anything but do want to be involved (ie tri-folding, sealing envelopes, stamps) 
    • Charles is concerned about many not being able to show up during daytime hours  
    • Fin suggests planning for two events, one daytime, and one evening or weekend; Charles wonders if three might be better 
    • Kate suggests planning for one event, and seeing how it goes 
    • Discussed date for bulk mail event 
      • Decided on 2/20/26, with a backup date of 2/25/26 
      • Timeline 
        • 10am to 1pm 
          • 10am – 11am: settling in and orientation 
          • 11am – 1pm: work 
          • 1pm: food arrives 
  • Discussed and revised promotional blurb for event 
  • Briefly discussed infographic flyer
    • Jeff suggests putting number of people affected (700,000+) instead of/along with the 1 in 5 stat 
  • Tabled LOB visit day 
  • Tabled advocacy resources page event sources 

 

Attendees 

Kate Brown, Charles Brown, Tonya Patricia, Carl Mancini, Paul Downing, Fin Hirschoff 

 Minutes 

  • Discussed ending phone poll  
  • Legislation 
    • Carl got in touch with McCarthy Vahee, she will take the lead in contacting Dathan, and people from AU will meet with the two soon. Want to also include Anwar, Lesser, and Gilchrest. Waiting for date and time from McCarthy-Vahee. Also reached out to Joseph Poletta, with whom he has a personal connection, and Poletta was supportive 
    • We are working with pre-existing legislation, so timeline of legislation drafted by mid-January looks good 
  • Went over resources page launch, and Carl will own updating the page. To update, someone will own checking CGA schedule of events, events on individual legislators’ pages, ORCA, CCAR, KTP, CT nonprofit alliance, others – will brainstorm sources 
  • Bulk mail project
    • Aim for late February for volunteer event to stuff envelopes. 
    • We want to include a very short letter with space to write at the bottom – no more than two paragraphs/half a page. 
    • We need a short statement about what the event will be 
  • For volunteers, we will want to reach out to the people who did the phone banking event, as well as the full list we invited to the training 
  • Charles suggests we open up the meeting to FB Live, group discusses instead doing a monthly update session with chat, 15 minutes 

Attendees

Carl Mancini, Kate Brown, Jennifer Henry, Charles Brown, Fin Hirschoff

Minutes

  • Advocacy resource page final review

  • Reviewed draft resources page (that advocacy resource page links to)

  • Discussed how to announce advocacy resources page, what language to use

  • Carl updated us on outreach efforts to potential legislative champions

  • We began discussing revising the champion letter

  • Kate likes idea of a map for the graphics-heavy flier

Attendees

Michaela Fissel, Charles Brown, Jennifer Henry, Kate Brown, Paul Downing, Aaron Jackson, Carl Mancini, Fin Hirschoff

Minutes

  • Discussed layout of resources page

    • Page design is approved

    • Decision was made to reorganize main resources page, into state/federal, which will be linked to from the advocacy resources page (under community resources)

    • Make opening paragraph on page into 2

    • Monday meeting will be listed as 12pm to 1pm

    • Kate suggests more info about what the Monday meeting is on the page

    • Fin says change “Monthly Zoom Meeting” on PAN link to “register”

    • Michaela says to make the buttons the same size and color

    • Top button will say “Join Weekly LPWG meeting”

    • Bottom button will say “Register for PAN”

    • Group finalized language for LPWG and PAN descriptions

    • Should add advocacy trainings in May on upcoming events section on page

    • Kate suggests inviting Ana from KTP to this meeting

      • For a while, they were the folks doing legislative advocacy

    • Volunteer engagement

      • Carl has emailed everyone who went to training, and those who signed up and didn’t go

      • Kate suggests announcing new advocacy resources page

      • Michaela suggests bringing group to LOB, familiarize them with the building and advocacy

        • Charles wonders how it would be organized, would there be a bus to get people there, group agrees

          • Michaela has rented a bus before

          • Kate recommends inviting Ana from KTP to this

Attendees

Jenn, Kate, Carl, Charles, Fin

Minutes

  • Advocacy resources
    • Jenn: something to catch the eye, simplified, a quick action people can take at the top
    • Get rid of agenda section
    • Put a blurb above meeting link about why people would want to come to Monday meetings (what might be covered)
    • blurb on top about what the general page is about
    • registration link for PAN
      • Paul brought up a concern about PAN – he’s tried to participate in recent months, but the meetings have been canceled.
    • upcoming events placeholder is “check back soon”
    • Existing resources section becomes references
    • Resources section for general advocacy resources
  • Monday meeting
    • To get more people to the Monday meeting – does meeting link start to go in newsletter?
    • Concerns were brought up about how the nature of the meeting will change with more attendees who are community members/volunteers and not
  • deeply engaged with the work, whether it would still be an appropriate forum for making decisions
  • Keeping volunteers from 11/18 engaged
    • Kate says invite them to this meeting and send personal emails.
    • In-person or virtual monthly action events sound challenging – too much work, and will people come
    • Jenn recommends we should invite people who signed up for 11/18 but couldn’t make it
  • Follow up with legislators
    • To follow up on phone bank event, what do we do – call again, send an email with a link to the poll, or poll in the email body? Revisit next week.
  • Charles wonders what next moves are for action events, and why are people attending the meeting – what is our purpose in having them there? Fin has similar thoughts.

Attendees

Kate Brown, Carl Mancini, Aaron Jackson, Charles Brown, Fin Hirschoff, Paul Downing

Minutes

  • Phone poll rundown and discussion
    • Kate and Paul recommended calling earlier in the day, paying attention to timing of dates and holidays etc.
    • Fin brought up considering timing of when legislature is in session for future calls, when are staff likely to be in the office
  • Carl has meeting with Lesser afternoon of 11/25
  • Discussed reaching back out to volunteers for further activities, and Carl suggested further training/coaching
  • Discussed draft resources page layout, content (Carl led)
    • Paul wondered if the page was specifically for legislation
    • Should there be significant things from the news in there?
    • Idea for section on other states’ efforts
    • Aaron suggests keeping the page simple so it doesn’t have to be updated all the time; concern is that it will get stale from lack of updates
    • Kate suggests renaming page get involved vs. Advocacy under resources
  • Outreach documents (Email template)
    • What is the ask? Carl and Kate:
      • To join this meeting
      • Also to reach out to other orgs, join the fight etc.
      • Carl: “together we are strong” “as peer support organizations, we have similar wants and needs,” “let’s meet to so we can discuss how to get legislation passed”
  • Fin brought up importance bringing the volunteers back in person at least every two months

Attendees

Aaron Jackson, Fin Hirschoff, Paul Downing, Charles Brown, Carl Mancini, Kate Brown, Michaela Fissel, Jennifer Henry

Minutes

  • We won’t send a de-registration email for the 11/18 training
  • For the training, the slide deck will be printed out
  • Discussed training slide deck
  • Carl will do the phone poll training after the CEU training
  • Worked on the phone poll script and response form

Attendees

Carl Mancini, Michaela Fissel, Paul Downing, Fin Hirschoff, Charles Brown, Jennifer Henry

Minutes

  • Discussed the 11/18 training
  • Fin, Michaela, Charles, Carl, Kate, and Jenn will be available to make calls on 11/18
  • Paul suggests creating a WhatsApp group for the community at some point down the line
  • Discussed how to record data during 11/18 phone poll
  • Number of registrants needs to be close to 30
  • Question came up whether a new contract would be required for Fin doing the CEU training

Attendees

Aaron Jackson, Charles Brown, Jennifer Henry, Fin Hirschoff, Kate Brown

Minutes

  • We went over the text of the confirmation email for the 11/18 communications training

  • Discussed importance of Title 20 inclusion for avoiding being lumped in with other professions (for example Community Health Workers)

  • Went over early draft training materials

  • Charles had the idea to do a couple trial phone calls before the training/polling date

Attendees

Jennifer Henry, Kate Brown, Michaela Fissel, Aaron Jackson, Paul Downing, Carl Mancini, Fin Hirschoff

Minutes

  • Worked on the draft email going out to potential volunteers for 11/18, with Michaela finalizing it later in the day
  • Worked on the registration form for the 11/18 event as well, finalized by Carl
  • Decided we’ll require responses/registrations for the 11/18 event by 11/5
  • Paul brought up the idea of having references and links to historical resources on the web site’s advocacy page, which we decided to do down the line

Attendees

Kate Brown, Michaela Fissel, Carl Mancini, Jennifer Henry, Aaron Jackson, Paul Downing, Fin Hirschoff

Minutes

  • New date for phone poll is 11/18, 2-5pm
  • Phone poll training participants will get 1 CEU
  • Email to potential volunteers should go out 10/27
  • We will reach out to RSS students from 2022 on (not including current students), as well as folks from the advocacy training list
  • Volunteer goal is about 31, which would work out to calling 5 offices per person
  • Advocacy resources page on the website will be called “advocacy,” with a banner at the top directing people seeking individual advocacy elsewhere

Attendees

Michaela Fissel, Jennifer Henry, Carl Mancini, Fin Hirschoff, Kate Brown, Charles Brown

Minutes

  • Outreach to peer organizations
    • AU contact person is Carl
    • We will develop a email template, talking points document
    • Organizations mentioned were KTP, ACLU, The Alliance, CT Cross-Disability Alliance, RBHAOs, PAIMI Council
  • Update on legislative champion letter/legislation
    • Carl continued outreach efforts with phone follow-up. He spoke to Lesser’s aide Matt Plourde
    • Left voicemails for the other five
    • We brought up the topic of outreach to legislators outside the Democrats
      • Discussed being ready to discuss topics like gun violence and mental illness if these come up

Attendees

Jennifer Henry, Fin Hirschoff, Michaela Fissel, Kate Brown, Charles Brown, Paul Downing, Aaron Jackson, Carl Mancini, Tonya Patricia

Minutes

  • Legislative champions

    • Letters are going out initially to Anwar, Lesser, Walker, Candelaria, Mccarthy-Vahey, and Gilchrest, via Carl

    • Envisioning multi-person meetings with legislators

  • Legislators that may oppose this? We don’t know. – We can address this by phone poll.

  • CCAR did poll of Legislators about CCAR and recovery sessions, part of their successful strategy from last session

  • Phone poll questions will be on JotForm for callers to record responses as they call

  • 1-2 hour phone banking party for poll

  • What time? Carl says afternoon seems most successful.

  • Questions:

    • We want a question tree

      • e. Have you heard of certified peer support?

        • If yes:

        • If no:

      • Question brainstorming

        • Are you familiar with what’s going on in peer support certification?

        • Support title 20 inclusion?

        • Do you support Medicaid reimbursement for peer support?

        • Are you in favor of funding peer support?

        • Are you aware of changes in credentialing in peer recovery workforce?

        • Where can we send additional resources?

      • Question coding for JotForm responses – yes/unsure/no

    • Question of how can peer advocacy network and people at this meeting start collaborating?

    • Brought up how allies might be most helpful, particularly Tom Insel, former NIMH director, with whom Fin has a connection

      • Endorsement/quote for materials?

      • Connecting with more allies?

      • Direct contact from them to legislators?

      • Multi-party endorsed letter of support?

      • Other?

Attendees

Aaron Jackson, Tonya Patricia, Paul Downing, Michaela Fissel, Charles Brown, Jennifer Henry, Carl Mancini, Fin Hirschoff

Minutes

  • Cat Proper is off the project

  • NAMI CT is on board with the legislative push

  • Discussed the final draft of letter and made a few tweaks

  • Jenn brought up the value of one-on-one training for legislative advocacy vs. Group

  • Polling legislators, we will reach out to 15 each

Attendees

Michaela Fissel, Tonya Patricia, Carl Mancini, Aaron Jackson, Cat Proper, Fin Hirschoff, Jennifer Henry, Paul Downing, Kate Brown

Minutes

  • Legislative champion letter

    • Comments due by 9am Wednesday

    • Letter finalized by Friday

    • Letter will be edited for length, reference other states’ handling of peer support, mention we are a national movement with clearly defined models, and moving third paragraph up to second

  • CCAR is introducing substance use and addiction legislation

  • Decided to develop a shorter letter based on the champion letter to recruit people from the peer community to attend the Monday noon meetings

  • We have by the end of October to meet with legislative champions

  • February 4th is the deadline for submitting legislation

  • We want to develop a resources page to the website with finished documents

Resources

Michaela shared some resources in the meeting for legislative advocacy work, about IOC (involuntary outpatient commitment):

Attendees

Carl Mancini, Aaron Jackson, Cat Proper, Fin Hirschoff, Jennifer Henry, Paul Downing

Minutes

  • Discussed developing a list of legislators who are known allies or could be, to recruit for drafting and sponsoring legislation

  • For outreach to partner organizations, Cat communicated they would like a list of talking points and information for navigating communication around difficult topics

    • Cat and Charles are ready to reach out when they get this guidance

  • Discussed possible data sources for infographic pie chart (where funding for mental health services currently goes)

    • This is not urgent we think, as this was designed for winning over legislators to vote on the legislation once it’s submitted

    • DHMAS (Elsa)

    • Further exploring https://openbudget.ct.gov/

Attendees

Michaela, Carl, Fin, Kate, Aaron

Minutes

  • Reviewed infographic designs and made changes

    • Color palette

    • Graphics

    • Information for pie chart

    • Layout

  • Made changes to draft letter

    • Decided on language of “peer recovery community” and “peer support workforce”

    • Worked on copy together

Attendees

Fin, Kate Brown, Carl Mancini, Michaela Fissel

Minutes

  • Discussed several graphics-heavy one pagers’ design

  • Decided not to include past legislator voting records in CRM

Tools for Communicating with Legislators

References

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