Sorry for my melt down last night. It has been an exceptionally difficult week in the brave new world of mental health reform in my neck of the woods, where we are transitioning from publicly provided services to privatization. Doesn't cost the taxpayers nearly as much. Of course, we don't deliver nearly as much either. It seems there is money to made from serving the poor, as long as you cherry-pick your clientele and severely restrict what services you are willing to offer. a number of companies have swooped in. My formerly public clinic was divested from the public system about 9 months ago. I work for a corporatation for the first time in my adult life. It's not a non-profit, its a not-for-profit, which means they need to make a profit, but they don't distribute it to share holders. In theory it goes back into the company so services can be expanded. Nice theory. They made me a manager not long after that. So I get to manage the shrinking of services to my community The whole thing stinks. I hate it.

When I say I have failed, that's what I'm referring to-those statistics Bobert posted, and others available in public policy journals, School of Social Work research papers, government statistics, and many other scholarly sources. Bobert, you have failed. All of us who have worked in the public arena since the mid 1970's as social workers, educators, public health providers, advocates, lobbyists, Catholic Charities workers-the list is long-have failed to be effective as change agents on a societal level. The tide is still running out. Individually have we perhaps been able to be helpful resources to a few people our lives have touched? Yes. And that does matter. But have we, by oour individual or collective efforts been able to exert enough influence on public policy such that the numbers on homelessness and malnutrition have dropped? Have we made a difference on a scale that matters in society?

No.

Janie