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About Us
Our Stand on the Issues
Advocacy Unlimited holds the clear, strong belief that everyone should be treated equally regardless of race, gender, or disability. Our stand on several key issues reflects that belief. In pursuit of freedom and equality for all people, we proudly publish our position on the following issues:
Medication
Advocacy Unlimited, Inc. believes the use of medication to help manage emotional and psychological experiences is a personal choice to be undertaken only with informed consent.
AU believes medication should be provided only in an atmosphere of choice and true informed consent where individual autonomy is respected.
AU believes medication should be viewed as a limited intervention to be used, if at all, to complement the developing skills, supports, and alternative coping techniques, with the goal of reducing or eliminating reliance on psychotropic medication.
AU is concerned about the over predominance of pharmacological interventions as the primary or sole therapeutic tool, given the body of scientific evidence that psychiatric drugs are frequently associated with serious, and in some cases, life threatening health conditions.
Psychiatric Advance Directives
Advocacy Unlimited, Inc. strongly endorses the use of psychiatric advance directives as a lawful instrument for protecting autonomy and self-determination in emergency situations where an individual would otherwise be at the mercy of medical professionals unfamiliar with their values, preferences, and choices in treatment.
AU believes psychiatric advance directives are an important instrument for the individual served to provide protection against ineffective, unwelcome, or damaging involuntary treatment. For providers, these directives are useful tools to administer the most efficacious and welcome care in difficult or emergent situations.
AU urges people in recovery to consider carefully the elements of an advance directive and appoint health care agents who understand and will support their preferences and values in treatment unequivocally, and who have the skills to effectively advocate for their well being when they are unable to do so for themselves.
Involuntary Outpatient Commitment
Advocacy Unlimited, Inc. strongly opposes any legislation or plan that would allow involuntary treatment to occur in outpatient settings or in the community at large.
AU believes that Connecticut law provides sufficient measures to intervene when persons with mental illness or co-occurring disorders present an imminent danger to themselves or others.
AU believes that forced treatment is a fundamental violation of civil rights, and that it is a statutory and societal assault on personal freedom and due process, threatening the constitutional foundations of our democracy.
Mental Health Services
Advocacy Unlimited, Inc. believes that access to appropriate and sufficient healthcare services to be a fundamental human right.
AU believes that respecting personal choice is fundamental in the delivery of mental health services. Individuals served deserve a system of care that is respectful, responsive, efficient, competent, and cost effective. Access to care should be decided by the person through a healthcare benefit that provides competitive, market responsive reimbursement based on outcomes and customer satisfaction. Mental health services must be flexible to support the unique needs and desires of the person served as expressed and defined by them. Persons in recovery should have integral, decision-making roles in the development, implementation, delivery, and evaluation of all mental health services.
AU endorses a vision of a mental healthcare system as described in the "Recovery Core Values" document, provided to DMHAS as a road map for healthcare system design.
Confidentiality
Historically, people with mental illness or co-occurring disorders have been denied many of the basic rights that other American citizens take for granted.
Their expressed wishes have been ignored and they have been denied the right to self-determination.
Every person, including a person with mental illness, has the right to make his or her own choices and to be treated with dignity and respect.
Mental health service providers must recognize the moral imperative to uphold civil rights, respect individual autonomy, and safeguard human dignity.
An adult using mental health services has the absolute right to control his or her own records.
Confidential medical or personal information must not be released to a spouse or other family member without the consumer's consent. This includes but is not limited to information regarding an adult child. If the consumer is a minor, consumer information must not be released without the consent of the parent or legal guardian.
Consumers of mental health services are encouraged to consider the use of an advance directive to express preferences regarding access to their records should they become incapable of making such decisions.
Consumer consent is always paramount, and always required.
We are all equal citizens under the law.
Peer Support and Self-Help
The concept of recovery is the underlying principle at Advocacy Unlimited. We believe the recovery process begins when an individual actively takes responsibility for his or her emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual well-being. The person must help him/her self; the individual must own and be responsible for his or her recovery plan.
Yet, we understand that taking responsibility for your own recovery does not mean doing everything by yourself. People live in a family, a community, a society. All individuals have social and emotional needs. Peer support - assistance from others in similar circumstances - is crucial.
Advocacy Unlimited places a strong emphasis on developing and maintaining a solid peer support network. We believe that only someone's peer knows what the person is going through; only a peer can provide advice and support based on commonly held sets of experiences. Peer support lets the individual know he or she is not alone. It provides comfort and assistance when the person begins to feel his/her perceptions and feelings are different than everyone else's. Peer support reduces isolation and therefore decreases despair and loneliness.
Advocacy Unlimited believes, however, that peer support can only be genuinely provided in the context of self-help. Peers give to each other, knowing the individual is trying to affect his or her own recovery.
Integration of Mental Health and Addiction Services for People with Co-occurring Disabilities
Recovery is the basic principle of Advocacy Unlimited. It is the heart of our belief system. Recovery involves the whole person, his or her emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual well-being. The recovery process does not split mind and body; it does not parcel up the individual into pieces or separate diagnosable entities.
At Advocacy Unlimited, we believe people with psychiatric disabilities or co-occurring disorders need to develop a single recovery plan. People cannot first "treat" one condition and then "treat" the other. Substance abuse problems cannot simply be put on "hold" while the individual attends to his or her psychiatric disabilities - or visa versa.
The provision of services must reflect the individual's reality. Consequently, Advocacy Unlimited believes mental health and addiction services must be integrated al all levels: individual, program, and system. We expect people with co-occurring disabilities to have a single recovery plan addressing both sets of issues. Just as they cannot be separated within a person, the services, too, must be coordinated and integrated.
The Right to Dignified, Respectful, and Humane Treatment
The right to dignified, respectful, and humane treatment is not only a right of those with psychiatric disabilities or co-occurring disorders - it is a basic right of all people. People with psychiatric disabilities or co-occurring disorders are asking for no more - but no less - than anyone else receiving health care and medical treatment.
Dignified treatment entails being responded to as an adult with all the rights accorded to someone in this society. It means the individual should not suffer through condescending "interviews" or de-personalized conversations and references.
Respectful treatment means the person is listened to, his/her experience, perceptions, and desires are truly heard and taken into account. Respectful treatment means that the health care provider respects what the individual is.
Humane treatment consists of decency and compassion. All individuals should receive treatment in this way. It is a fundamental tenet in our society.
Advocacy Unlimited believes that the right to dignified, respectful treatment is intimately related to stigma. As long as people with psychiatric disabilities or co-occurring disorders are "put down," seen as "second-class" citizens, perceived as not being able to care for themselves, they will be stigmatized and treated poorly - by those in the health care field and by everyone else.
Advocacy Unlimited believes all forms of discrimination and bias must be eliminated - in the workplace and the community, the physician's office and the hospital emergency room, the place of residence and the recreational arena.
Mechanical or Physical Restraints and Face-down Take Downs
The decision to place any individual in seclusion or mechanical restraint is seldom an appropriate action despite rationalizations to the contrary. The decision to utilize a face down take down procedure is never warranted, and Advocacy Unlimited, Inc. opposes any attempt to incorporate this abusive intervention into the policies and procedures of any hospital or agency in this state.
The likelihood of physical and emotional abuse is great as a result of any dominating physical restraint procedure; and then, too, there is little evidence that suggests that such oppressive interventions are therapeutic or effective. On the contrary, the use of physical force during restraints and seclusion can lead to avoidable injuries, traumatic stress, and long-term emotional distress.
There are times when restraining an individual would, on the surface, appear to be the only reasonable response to a potentially dangerous situation. We believe, however, that a closer look would reveal a different conclusion. There is rarely a situation that erupts without early warning or without identifiable pre-crisis stages. On an inpatient unit, hospital staff members are charged with the responsibility of maintaining a safe and therapeutic environment. All too often, milieu management takes place from a reactive posture. After a crisis erupts, staff tends to make immediate, emotional, and unplanned responses. These types of chaotic responses increase the risk for further escalation of the crisis. As the crisis intensifies, there are more and more opportunities for all parties to be injured. Given human nature and institutional dynamics, any policy that allows for restraint will inevitably be used to justify restraint as the last and only resort.
If, however, care is taken to establish on-going rapport and trusting relationships among staff members and the person in their care, hospitals and agencies will undoubtedly create environments that ate conducive to healing, reintegration, and recovery. Potentially volatile situations can be identified early and strategies to diffuse and resolve crises can be thoughtfully employed by all parties. Treatment outcomes will be enhanced as behaviors and attitudes are shaped by cooperation and respect rather than coercion and domination. Persons who have suffered the indignity, humiliation, and physical pain of physical and mechanical restraint often become estranged from the system of care that is in place. Persons who have witnessed such procedures are equally traumatized by the event and bear the trauma of that witness for years to come.
On the other hand, persons who have benefited from a system which respects individual choice, human dignity, and compassionate interaction will very likely seek out help whenever necessary, long before their problems become overwhelming. Positive rather than negative reinforcement taking into consideration personal strengths is much preferred.
Though there may be very rare situations that would warrant physical intervention, the costs of such intervention must always be weighed against the benefits. The re-traumatization of individuals who have been the victims of physical or sexual abuse can be devastating. The long term effects of such interventions are particularly cruel, highly immoral, and altogether unethical. This type of intervention is, therefore, never indicated. Children and elderly people can be seriously harmed by physical restraint. Bones can be and are broken. People experience respiratory and cardiac distress. People suffocate and die. Sadly, a review of recent headlines confirms that these are legitimate fears.
Therefore, Advocacy Unlimited strongly calls for the elimination of statewide use of physical and mechanical restraint. We will work to help facilitate these efforts.
Recovery
Advocacy Unlimited, Inc. believes that recovery from mental illness or substance abuse is not only possible, but common.
AU believes recovery is a process of discovery and adaptation that is personally defined by the individual experiencing it. We believe that recovery is a unique process for each individual whose autonomy, preferences, cultural background and values must be recognized and honored. We respect the understanding and insight that each individual brings to his or her own experience of illness and of recovery.
Advocacy Unlimited does not adhere to a strict definition of mental illness or recovery from it.
AU believes the recovery process begins when an individual actively takes responsibility for his or her emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual well-being. The recovery process is furthered by informed choice and self-determination the individual can exercise in chosen environments and with flexible supports that maximize autonomy, dignity, and respect.
For some, recovery can mean being symptom-free. For others, recovery can mean living a full and satisfying life within the context of one's symptoms.
Advocacy Unlimited does believe that recovery includes claiming social functions and identities that are accepted as valid by oneself and others within one's chosen community.
We believe that recovery takes effort and that the person alone ultimately achieves it, although the support of others can be crucial.
We believe that there is a solid base of evidence for recovery and hope is an essential component for recovery to occur.
We believe that the road to recovery includes obstacles, and that the individual must be courageous and committed to going over them, around them, under them, and through them.
We believe that recovery means a life worth living.
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