Great news! At literally the last possible moment (late in the day on 10 October), both sides of Joint Committee on Public Health voted unanimously to report the PsyPact bills (H.2528 / S.1487) favorably out of committee. Now, these bills need to reach the floor!
Normally, every bill has to go through yet another committee to decide if the Commonwealth wants to pay for it. Totally reasonable! But since PsyPact is unlikely to involve a substantial cost (and will probably even save money), let's see if we can avoid that. Every committtee means more delay and more chance for a bill to die.
So, we need your help again! Everyone, this time! Especially if your legislator is in some leadership role, or if your legislator is one of the awesome folks who sponsored these bills, or is on the Joint Committee on Public Health, but even if not, tell your legislators to tell the folks who are in leadership and to urge the clerks, no delay, no detour, let's get these bills moving forward.
#mapoli #MentalHealthAccess #PsyPactMA
We'll try to add some finance-related content to the Advocacy Toolkit soon!
Legislators are very busy! Over 8000 bills were filed during this legislative session. If they don't hear from their constituents about how much we really need them to pass a specific bill, they assume that we don't care about it, and they go back to naming libraries and suchlike.
Click here to find out if you are one of the most important people at this moment, those whose legislators are on the key committees.
Click here to learn more about PsyPact, what you can do right now to help (no matter where you live), and to get scripts for phone calls, social media posts, and other tools to help educate the public and increase pressure on the lawmakers to do the jobs we sent them to the State House to do.
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Welcome! This site is a central hub for Massachusetts psychologists and allies who want to help move key legislation forward — especially the PsyPact bill, which will expand access to mental health care, strengthen our profession, and bring Massachusetts in line with 43 other states (and counting!) which have already implemented this simple and cost-free legislative improvement to the outdated and fragmented licensing system.
We know it’s hard to keep track of deadlines, drafts, and legislative updates. That’s why everything you need to take action — background info, timelines, scripts, letter templates, and one-pagers to share with colleagues and friends — is gathered here.
This page is very much a work-in-progress -- we're getting things set up as soon as we can. If you have other ideas for advocacy, or if you would like to help us improve this page, please let us know!
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Note: this website is NOT an official publication of the Massachusetts Psychological Association. It was created by individual psychologists, advocating as individuals on behalf of our professional colleagues and on behalf of the people of the Commonwealth.