This is Part 2 of the conversation we began with last month's Episode 169, Navigating Systemic Shifts: Policy Changes That Impact Mental Health Care. We want to know, from those doing the work, what feels different about doing mental health policy in 2025. For this episode, we bring back our guests Mandi Zapata of Texas Civil Rights Project, Noah Jones of Texas Counseling Association, and Maia Volk of Disability Rights Texas. This time we’re focusing more on the personal stakes of doing policy work in a challenging environment.

In a bonus segment, we revisit a conversation from 2023, about Girls Empowerment Network and what their experience has to teach us about the future of public policy.

Episode 169 - Navigating Systemic Shifts: Policy Changes That Impact Mental Health Care

Related links:

• https://hogg.utexas.edu/texas-mental-health-guide
• https://hogg.utexas.edu/the-purpose-of-policy-work-in-a-divisive-time
• https://hogg.utexas.edu/the-future-of-recovery
• https://hogg.utexas.edu/2-million-awarded-to-train-mental-health-policy-fellows-in-texas
• https://hogg.utexas.edu/mental-health-goes-back-to-school
• https://hogg.utexas.edu/hogg-foundation-statement-on-migrant-mental-health

We are coming to you from Austin, Texas, site of the Texas Legislature an epicenter of the changes that are impacting people, as well as concerted efforts to address those changes. We thought it would be fitting to kick off this new season of Into the Fold with a look into the bustling world of public policy – and how policy changes impact mental health.

For this conversation we are joined by Mandi Zapata of Texas Civil Rights Project, Noah Jones of Texas Counseling Association, and Maia Volk of Disability Rights Texas. They are all Hogg Policy Fellows, employed by organizations that have received Policy Fellows grants from the Hogg. They came to our studio for a conversation on how their mental health experiences both shape, and are shaped by, their work in the policy arena.

Related Links:

• https://hogg.utexas.edu/texas-mental-health-guide
• https://hogg.utexas.edu/the-purpose-of-policy-work-in-a-divisive-time
• https://hogg.utexas.edu/the-future-of-recovery
• https://hogg.utexas.edu/2-million-awarded-to-train-mental-health-policy-fellows-in-texas
• https://hogg.utexas.edu/mental-health-goes-back-to-school
• https://hogg.utexas.edu/hogg-foundation-statement-on-migrant-mental-health

The holidays can be a time of joy, but for many, they bring unique challenges, such as loneliness, financial stress, or grief. Today, we’re focusing on ways to provide meaningful support to individuals during the holiday season. We are joined today by Jen Cardenas, executive director of Austin Clubhouse, an organization dedicated to building a community that supports adults living with mental health diagnoses. Accompanying her is Kasey Pfaff, an Austin Clubhouse member. They discuss the Clubhouse's unique communal ethos and how it can be a balm during the holiday season.

Related Links:

• Exploring Gratitude

• A Peer Perspective on Health and the Holidays

• Relieving Holiday Stress and Hurricane Trauma

In today’s episode, we’re diving into the unique stresses and rewards of policy work, even or especially during an election year as divisive as this one has been. With the help of Alison Mohr Boleware, policy director for the Hogg Foundation, and Lyssette Galvan, policy director for National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Texas, we'll discuss strategies for maintaining resilience and the deeper purpose behind policy work, even in challenging times.

Also check out:

• Political Climate as a Chronic Stressor

• A Reality Check Session Update from the Hogg Policy Team

• Social Work in a Time of Division

• Some Good News in Public Policy

• Some More Good News in Public Policy

• Social Work in a Time of Division

• Protecting Kids’ Mental Health in a Time of Polarization

The Hogg Foundation often characterizes its mission as being one "to transform the places where people live, learn, work, play, and pray." That third word, work, is the focus of today's episode. In observance of World Mental Health Day and its theme, "It's Time to Prioritize Mental Health in the Workplace," we discuss how we can transform workplaces into spaces that support mental health. We also discuss structural factors that make real change difficult. We have brought back a previous guest, Dr. Ryan Sutton, an associate professor in the department of education psychology at the University of Texas at Austin and a former postdoctoral fellow for the Hogg foundation.

Related Links:

• World Mental Health Day 2024
• Women Knowledge Workers in Higher Education Show Themselves Out
• Opportunity Plus Struggle: Three Workplace Rules Peer Supporters Should Know

For the month of September, the Hogg Foundation is celebrating National Recovery Month. Throughout the month we’ll be highlighting the creativity, resilience, and leadership of people in recovery from mental and substance use conditions, and the many things our grantee partners are doing to transform mental health in their communities.

For this episode, we talk to two friends from within the Hogg Foundation’s wide network of changemakers. First, Jason Howell, executive director of RecoveryPeople, about the new film Humanly Possible, which explores the journeys of people recovering from substance use conditions. The film was produced with funding support from the Hogg Foundation. The second segment is a conversation with Hannah Slyzk, a past recipient of the Hogg Foundation’s Moore Fellowship for doctoral research, about youth mental health.

Related Links:

https://hogg.utexas.edu/recovery-month

https://recoverypeople.org/humanly-possible/premiere/

https://hogg.utexas.edu/rethinking-youth-suicide

Historically, the mental health system, and the conversation surrounding it, has given more value to the expert opinions of providers and clinicians than the experiences of those living with mental health conditions. For well over a decade now, the Hogg Foundation bas been elevating the visibility of mental health consumers and has thrown its full weight behind the peer support and recovery movement. But right at The University of Texas at Austin, there has been the full flowering of a peer support consumer specifically for students. Called Longhorn SHARE, it was launched in 2022 with the support of the University's Counseling and Mental Health Center. In this episode we talk to Adrian Lancaster, coordinator of Longhorn SHARE and a staunch advocate for student peer support.

• How Peer Support Improves Community Mental Health

• Peer Support in the Criminal Justice System

• Peer Support for Young Adults

• A New Mental Health App Comes to UT

Mental health care and recovery services have historically prioritized a clinical medical model. Under this model, expertise resided almost exclusively in the hands of professionally trained healthcare providers. Beginning in the 1960s and 70s, however, a recovery model emerged that put greater emphasis on the self-determination of “consumers” of mental health services and the expertise of individuals with lived experience of mental health challenges.

This episode of Into the Fold was recorded onsite at PeerFest 2024 and guest hosted by Anna Gray and Janet Paleo. Anna and Janet are co-founders of Prosumers International, and Anna is also its executive director. Rooted in the belief that purposeful recovery is possible, Prosumers aims to create an empowering environment where people with mental health challenges can achieve recovery on their own terms.

Anna and Janet spoke with Dr. Octavio N. Martinez, Jr., executive director of the Hogg Foundation, to learn more about the Hogg Foundation’s support of a mental health recovery model that prioritizes the voices of individuals with lived experience.

• Into the Fold, Episode 77: Consumer Voice
• Into the Fold, Episode 162: It’s a Texas Thing: Celebrating Recovery at PeerFest
• 3 Things to Know: Recovery
• Texas Recovery Movement
• A Joyful Noise: Peerfest
• Thrauma: From Surviving to Thriving
• Mental Health Policy Fellows and Policy Academy
• $2 Million Awarded to Train Mental Health Policy Fellows in Texas