Advocacy

I can always tell when a hawk enters my neighborhood… the crows go berserk. They call to each other in warning and encouragement and swoop at the hawk again and again. Sometimes it’s just two or three crows working together, sometimes many, but it’s always relentless… they keep pushing back until the hawk flies off.

In the United States, on January 13, 2026, the Trump administration attempted to pull a about quarter of SAMHSA’s funding, about $2 billion dollars, away from grants that had already been approved. If this attempt had been successful it would have severely affected the work about 2800 organizations that rely on grant funding to supply services for substance use disorder and mental health… directly impacting concerned family members, their loved ones, and providers within our HFHPN community.

This attempt was reversed in less than 24 hours due to the significant bipartisan pushback the administration received.

Pushbacking back together works.

The hawk is gone for the moment… but the threat towards funding and administrative support for substance use disorder and mental health services is still present.

Let’s be crows together.

If you are a resident of the United States, your advocacy matters.
Here’s what you can do:

1. Choose your topics & Increase your awareness

2. Know who your representatives are

3. Decide how you will contact them

4. Create your message

5. Let it fly!

Lets go through these steps in greater detail…

Disclaimer: While the components of this structure has been pulled from multiple sources, I am not experienced in advocacy. This initial structure is intended to empower us as individuals and as community to take action…. and… let me know if you have more resources, better information… if I am missing something… if I am misinformed… send me an email at cordelia@helpingfamilieshelp.com!

Help us all be more effective in our efforts by providing your expertise and perspective!

1. Choose your areas of concern & Increase your awareness

As a crow, this is where you choose your neighborhood. You can’t protect the whole city… that’s not sustainable in the long run. Instead, choose what you will protect, commit to responding there, and trust others will protect other areas. This doesn’t mean the other neighborhoods aren’t important… we just can’t protect them all. Once you’ve chosen your neighborhood, get to know it well.
As a human, this means choosing what your prioritized areas of concern are. Learn them really well, and then respond to their threats when needed.

🐦‍⬛ If you are choosing this battle of SAMHSA funding in Jan 2026, here’s a few news articles to help you learn more: NPR and NY Times (gift article)

2. Know who your representatives are

Learn who represents you. Once you are alerted that a hawk is in your area… that there is a threat to your area of concern… respond by reaching out to your representatives and encouraging others who are protecting that same area to do the same.

Find Your Representative & Senators: 

1. Go to www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative or www.senate.gov/senators/senators-contact.htm. 

2. Enter your ZIP code to identify your specific Representative and Senators. 

3. Visit Their Official Website: Each member has a personal website (e.g., [lastname].house.gov or [lastname].senate.gov). 

3. Decide how you will contact your representative

You can call them, email them, send them a letter through snail mail, or visit them in their office. Each of these have different benefits.

• Calling - Excellent when speed is of the essence. You may leave a voice mail, or might end up talking to a staff member. Rarely will you get the representative themselves, and that is okay. Good for brief comments, not so good for nuance. Rather not talk to someone in person? Call after hours.

• Email - while quick and convenient this is the least effective of the three options. It’s also better than nothing.

• Physical Letter - Excellent when nuance is needed or to share your story. Personalized letters have more impact than cookie-cutter responses. Slower and less convenient than calling or email.

• Office Visit - Most personal, will likely have a short time allotted. Be cordial & respectful… if they are defending themselves they are no longer open to change. Practice your message and your Positive Communication Skills.

Ultimately, choose the method that is best for you. Something is better than nothing and silence has an impact too.

4. Create your message

Create your script/letter. Keep to the point. Use your Positive Communication skills that you know and love from your CRAFT-based work.

• Brief (especially for calls or emails. Offer one area of concern per contact. In letters you can go deeper but still stay focused on one point)

• Specific (Offer details in the specific measure, bill, etc…. and specific examples of how it impacts you and your community)

• I feel statements (Center your message on you and your experience. Share how it impacts you and your community and how you feel about it. Personal impact stories have a more lasting effect than generalities. I can’t stress this enough…. stories matter! Tell your story!!!!!)

• Positive (Tell them what you want.. not only what you don’t want)

• Understanding (You might understand their perspective AND the impact to you is also true and important)

Personal is more powerful than cookie cutter. (Cookie cutter is okay too.) But as much as you can, make it personal.

Here’s a link to a letter template if that is helpful.

🐦‍⬛ For the Jan 2026 funding withdrawal attempt: The day after the attempt was made,100 House members joined together and pushed back by write a letter to health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Was the representative from your district among them? Here’s the pdf of the letter send by the House Representatives. Search the pdf for your rep’s last name to see if they were a part of the efforts. If they were, a quick note or call of appreciation is in order! (Positive reinforcement!) If not, feedback is important!! Let them know how impacts you and what you would like to see from them in the future.

5. Let it fly!

Send it! Leave the voicemail. Put the stamp on the envelope and drop it in the mail. Push the send on your email. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to get out into the world and make some noise.

And then? If you need to roost and recover, make that happen. If you have momentum, go on to your next representative!