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Mental Health - Our AMHCA Mission

By Suzanne Walker posted 10-17-2016 18:39

  

Mental Health - Our AMHCA Mission

It’s Time To Restore A Sense Of Mission To Mental Health  by Octavio Martinez, CEO of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health. The author contends that reason and knowledge are insufficient to face the most pressing challenges of our time: "Without an old-fashioned sense of shame at the suffering we allow to endure through neglect and selfishness, we don’t have the motivation to act. Without a shared sense of values, about who we are and what we care about, we won’t know where and how to act even if we can mobilize a sense of moral urgency." The article made me wonder.  What is our motivation and our own sense of moral urgency in terms of our own profession and association?

In business, there is always a great deal of focus on "the drivers". In the business world, a driver is a resource, process or condition that is vital for the continued success and growth of a business. An organization must identify its own business drivers and attempt and strive to maximize these forces that are under their control. In order for our profession and our professional association to succeed, we need to identify and be aware of the many "forces" (a.k.a. drivers) which impact our work. Forces (drivers) that impact our profession fall under one of the following categories:  Political, Economic, Ethical, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal 

Take a moment to think. HOW are we addressing the "FORCES" (the drivers)?  How do we approach our work with a sense of mission?

How we address these matters for the individual (patient centered level) as well as a profession (National and State Level) ?

In some ways, these forces (drivers) highlighted above may remind us of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. While these drivers above are not in rank order, when we work with someone and when we work with our AMHCA on the National and State level to improve and advance our profession, we need to aware of the influences of many factors and forces. Mission and vision statements both relate to an association’s purpose.

A mission statement should guide the actions of the organization, spell out its overall goal, provide a path, and guide decision-making. It provides "the framework or context within which the association's strategies are formulated." It is like a goal for what the association wants to do for the world. mission statement communicates the organization’s reason for being, and how it aims to serve its key stakeholders. Mission statements answer questions about:   Who we are?          What do we value?

A vision statement defines the optimal desired future state - the mental picture - of what an organization wants to achieve over time; provides organization the guidance and inspiration to focus on achieving in 5, 10, or more years. Vision are statements answer questions about:  Where we’re going?   How we will know when we get there?

Research shows that organizations with clearly communicated, widely understood, and collectively shared mission and vision statements perform better than those without them. The caveat of these findings also holds that the association is effective only if the mission and vision statements are aligned with the association's strategy, goals and objectives as well. This can be boiled down to “Talking the talk and walking the walk.” The question I pose to you is do we, as an association, AMHCA, support what we say, not just with words, but also through action or evidence. This is the heart of what we need to reconcile and address. Do we have the right mission and vision? And when and if we do; are we living up to our mission and vision?


The link to the current:  AMHCA Vision and Mission

OUR VISION - The American Mental Health Counselors Association (AMHCA) is the leading national organization for licensed clinical mental health counselors. AMHCA strives to be the go-to organization for LCMHCs for education, advocacy, leadership and collaboration. Our organization provides the backbone of skills and resources needed for clinical mental health counselors to thrive in today's world. 

Does this Vision statement accurately reflect your view of your professional association?

Would you change anything?  Add or subtract anything?

OUR MISSION - The mission of AMHCA is to enhance the profession of clinical mental health counseling through advocacy, education and collaboration.  

Would you make any changes (add, subtract...) to this Mission statement?

Let me know what you think - the good, the not so good and the ways we can improve our Mission and Vision statements and how we carry them out. I really want to hear from you.

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10-18-2016 08:58

This is a great opportunity for our membership to review and offer input on AMHCA's mission and vision.