Letter from PRA Chair, Lisa Razzano

I am excited to write to you as the new chair of the PRA Board of Directors. It was wonderful to see many of you at our annual conference in Minneapolis, MN in May and to have a chance to reconnect. I want to thank the Minnesota Chapter for all of their hard work in hosting an excellent and informative event. For those of you who were unable to attend, I look forward to connecting in the future. I am also looking forward to working with all of you to continue to build and strengthen our association and to promote psychiatric rehabilitation throughout the United States and abroad. That said, there is a lot of work to accomplish!

With the support of the entire PRA operational team, we are working to develop new programs and opportunities to affect change throughout the psychiatric rehabilitation community. Now more than ever, programs are growing and new services to meet the needs of individuals in recovery and their families are designed. As a result, our workforce continues to grow and diversify. In the coming months we will launch new initiatives for training and education to support these workforce needs. If you already hold a CPRP these programs will offer opportunities for CEs for recertification; if you don’t yet have a CPRP, now is your chance to start the process. As a CPRP, I recognize the challenges in finding education and training programs that directly address psychiatric rehabilitation programs and principles.

Over the next few months, our country will embark on the process to elect our president in November 2012. Like other past elections, there are many important issues to be addressed, including the economy, jobs, and ongoing conflicts abroad. Another important topic will be health care reform, including both access to physical health coverage and treatment, as well as the ways in which mental health care services are provided and financed. PRA supports the need for programs and services that not only address physical wellness as a component of recovery, but promote the integration of health and mental health services. This was a central theme for the 2012 PRA Annual Conference in Minneapolis, and it will continue as a focal area of advocacy for PRA. As we know, many health conditions adversely affect individuals in recovery, with documented health disparities in rates of illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, and high cholesterol. This summer, I invite all of you to not only learn more about the physical health of individuals in recovery, but also the ways in which changes related to health care reform will affect people in recovery and the American population as a whole. As we promote wellness in recovery, we also promote longevity.