A pendant I’ve had on my wall for the better part of a decade is a quote by FDR which says: “A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.” This quote always resonates with me most toward the end of the year, because the end of the year in the behavioral health field is when we are hectically trying to finish up projects, and we want to fit in time for our clients who struggle around the holidays, and we’re understaffed because staff/co-workers gotta use their PTO before the end of the year, and we have the busyness of the back-to-back holidays, and on and on. This quote reminds me that the chaos, hecticness, ups and downs of now always helps me down the line somewhere.
On November 15th, the Governor’s Budget for the next biennium was released, along with a letter to the Behavioral Health System for Future Generations (BHSFG) Commission Chair, Bob Keenan. This letter summarizes the Governor’s authorization of up to $100 million to implement all 10 of the Phase 1 recommendations that were listed in the BHSFG Commission’s Final Report. We applaud the Commission and the Governor for focusing on this imperative work, and we look forward to supporting the planning and implementation of these recommendations.
As always, BHAM’s platform, talking points, and additional information for the 2025 Legislative Session can be found here. And be sure to subscribe to our newsletters! We will be sending updates from the session more frequently, once the session starts. You can subscribe at the bottom of our homepage on www.bhamt.org.
I wanted to share with you some other meaningful work that is going on across Montana:
- Montana State University has created eight trainings about Caring for Indigenous Montanans. These trainings are free, self-paced, and worth three CEUs!
- Montana Public Health Institute came out with four videos focusing on the Crisis Now Model and how Local and Tribal Health Departments are addressing the behavioral health related needs in their communities. These videos do a great job of explaining the three Crisis Now pillars of Someone to Call, Someone to Respond, and Somewhere to Go.
Please reach out to me if there is anything you need. When we work together, we can solve all the problems out there!
Stay safe. Stay healthy.
Sierra
info@bhamt.org