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Policy Areas

Prepare your team for challenging events through trainings and sessions being offered at the 2023 RCPA Annual Conference A Decade of Unity! Workshops will focus on some difficult topics but will be certain to improve your team’s treatment of patients as well as their own, personal well-being. View the full brochure here, and claim your early bird rate, your hotel, and your discount today so you can gain direct access to workshops such as:

  • Ethics, Suicide, and Coercive Practices: Are We Doing More Harm Than Good?
    • Examine cultural and societal values in relation to suicide, including a discussion on whether physician-assisted suicide is a human right.
  • Reducing Health Disparities Through a Collaborative Approach to Value-Based Contracting
    • Learn about Highmark Wholecare’s intervention into minority adolescent treatment for STIs, which reduced racial/ethnic disparities through Medicaid VBC payment models.
  • Measurement-Based Care: Exploring the Value of a Coordinated Approach in Pennsylvania
    • Analyze the implementation of measurement-based care models across Northeast Pennsylvania through Greenspace Health and Northeast Behavioral Health Care Consortium.
  • Attracting and Retaining the Best Talent: Mitigating Bias in Hiring, From Sourcing Through Onboarding
    • Discover ways in which bias presents itself during the hiring process and how to manage it so that you can find and keep great talent.
  • The Dialectical Behavior Model of Living
    • Study the Dialectical Behavior Model of Living in order to assist neurodivergent individuals in managing their social, emotional, and environmental processes.
  • Debriefing: Supporting Staff and People Supported Through a Traumatic Event
    • Be a leader for your team by utilizing debriefing tactics in order to help your employees when traumatic experiences happen in the workplace.
  • Treating Problematic Sexualized Behaviors Through a Systemic Model
    • Identify warning signs of problematic sexual behavior in adolescents and learn how to approach and treat such behaviors with cultural and ethical considerations.
  • Machine Learning: New Tools to Improve Youth Mental Health Outcomes
    • Hear from Gemma Services on how they improved their PRTF and Outpatient programs through a data analytics firm and the creation of an Insight Generator tool.
  • RCPA Captive Health Plan: NON-CE Offering
    • Learn about the RCPA Captive Health Care program, including benefits, costs, and savings potentials for your organizations.
Register today!

In addition to an impressive roster of speakers, our 2023 Conference will have an exciting array of sponsors and exhibitors. We thank those who have signed on thus far! If you are interested in sponsoring or exhibiting, visit here for more details or contact Carol Ferenz, Conference Coordinator, with any questions you may have. Keep up-to-date and register today for #rcpaconf!

Message from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing:

This Fall is shaping up to be one of the most consequential federal legislative periods in recent years.

Lawmakers are treating the time between September and December as one of their last and best chances to pass meaningful, bipartisan legislation and secure funding for key behavioral health programs and services before the 2024 election cycle dominates the conversation.

So, it’s the perfect time for us to come together and demand our elected officials prioritize solutions to address the nation’s ongoing mental health and substance use crises.

Register Now!

Register now to join our Virtual Public Policy Institute on Wednesday, October 18. Together, we’ll embark on an afternoon of virtual advocacy where we’ll directly contact elected officials about issues like:

  • The behavioral health workforce shortage;
  • Establishing CCBHCs in federal law;
  • Expanding access to substance use care and treatment; and
  • Investing more in the nation’s crisis care infrastructure.

While great progress has been made by Congress and the Biden-Harris administration in the past few years, more must be done to ensure everyone everywhere has access to comprehensive, high-quality mental health and substance use care.

This is your time to make a difference. With your help, our unified voice will cut through the noise and ensure mental health and substance use programs are front and center during a busy legislative Fall.

We look forward to seeing you.

The Jana Marie Foundation, Aevidum, Prevent Suicide PA, Pennsylvania Network for Student Assistance Services (PNSAS), STAR-Center at the University of Pittsburgh, and Garrett Lee Smith (GLS) Youth Suicide Prevention Grant are pleased to share a resource guide for communities for National Suicide Prevention Month. Within the month of September, the week of September 10–16 is recognized as National Suicide Prevention Week, with Sunday, September 10 marking World Suicide Prevention Day. This year’s theme is “Creating Hope Through Action.”

The resource guide provides examples of activities that you can implement in your organization or community to raise awareness of the importance of suicide prevention. This includes ideas for events, training, social media posts, virtual backgrounds, a sample proclamation, and more.

Please feel free to share this resource guide with partners in your communities that can work together to create hope and prevent suicide.

If you have any questions, please follow up with Perri Rosen or RCPA Policy Director Jim Sharp.

At the August 2023 ISAC meeting, Self Advocates United as 1 (SAU1) presented a tribute to Carolyn Morgan, who was an inspiring self-advocate who encouraged many others to speak for themselves. SAU1 has developed a Youth Empowerment Fellowship program in memory of Carolyn, and is seeking support for this program, including financial. Their presentation is now available and can be viewed here. If you would like to support or ask questions about the program, please contact SAU1 directly.

The Office of Developmental Programs (ODP) has shared a list of current Agency With Choice (AWC) Financial Management Service (FMS) organizations that are available to support participants and surrogates who have chosen to self-direct some or all of their Participant Directed Services (PDS) using the AWC FMS model and are in the Consolidated, Community Living, or Person/Family Directed Support (P/FDS) waivers. Please view the announcement for additional information and to see the listing.

The Pennsylvania Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs (DDAP) will host technical assistance webinars on substance use disorder (SUD) confidentiality and Act 33’s impact. DDAP is seeking input through a short “SUD Confidentiality Survey” to tailor the webinar topics to the audience’s needs. The survey is open until 6:00 pm on September 22, 2023. To participate in these webinars and other monthly DDAP technical sessions, email DDAP’s ASAM Transition inbox for calendar invites. Questions about SUD confidentiality regulations can be directed to DDAP’s Division of Program Licensure electronically.

The RCPA 2023 Annual Conference A Decade of Unity is scheduled for October 10 – 13, 2023, at the Hershey Lodge. The sessions listed below are a sample of the sessions planned, and these include the opportunities to interact with DHS, OLTL, and Aging Department leaders. This will be further enhanced by the participation of current and prospective CHC-MCOs. Of course, a number of networking events with your peers, technology innovators, and vendors to improve your operations make these days a must-have for your agency! View the list below of planned sessions for your PD&A teams:

  1. State of the State: DHS Secretary Arkoosh
  2. Become a Destination Employer
  3. Moral Injury: Reframing and Repair
  4. Restrictive Practices Across the States: Strategies to Advocate for Change
  5. The Happy Valley FitLink Approach to Inclusive Wellness
  6. OLTL Updates and Quality Initiatives
  7. Driving Pennsylvania’s Health Care Transformation: Integrating Perspectives for Advanced Patient-Centered Care
  8. Value-Based Purchasing: A Survival Guide
  9. Beyond Accessibility: Diversity and Inclusion in the Disability Community
  10. Addressing the Workforce Crisis: Strategy and Policy Learnings From Four Organizations
  11. Enabling Technology: The Why, What, and How Needed to Make it Happen
  12. Leadership and Navigating Change (1 and 2)
  13. Getting Past the First Meeting to the Contract Negotiation
  14. Revealing the Potential of Smart Home Technologies for People With Disabilities Through Research and Resources
  15. Findings on Stakeholder Engagement for the PA Master Plan for Older Adults
  16. Reducing Health Disparities Through a Collaborative Approach to Value-Based Contracting
  17. Attracting and Retaining the Best Talent: Mitigating Bias in Hiring, From Sourcing Through Onboarding
  18. Independence and Wellness Through Employment

Use this link for quick, convenient online registration for the 2023 Annual Conference! You can view the brochure for the full schedule as well as the RCPA Conference website for further details. We look forward to seeing you in Hershey this October!

The University of Pittsburgh and other Pennsylvania-based partners are supporting the efforts of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, led by the Pennsylvania Department on Aging, to develop a Master Plan for Older Adults. Please circulate this survey on PA Aging and Disability Needs to your consumers and encourage them to complete it ASAP.

This project is being led by Dr. Howard B. Degenholtz and Dr. Steven Albert from the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health. Please use this link to share any questions or concerns you have about the process.

If you have any questions, please contact Fady Sahhar.

September continues PA Family Network’s series on Participant Directed Services. Join the team of Family Advisors to get your questions answered about Participant Directed Services and how you can choose to direct your own services under the Intellectual Disability/Autism (ID/A) Waivers. These workshops are created by family members and self-advocates FOR family members and self-advocates.

Register for upcoming events online.

Community Engagement Workshops:
These will only be offered at these dates and times!

LifeCourse Workshops  

Waiver Workshops

Support Groups