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President Bush's proposed fiscal year 2003 budget, released on February 4, would terminate funding for the three mental health consumer-run national technical assistance centers: CONTAC, the National Empowerment Center, and the National Mental Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse. Also threatened are the two consumer-supporter national technical assistance centers operated by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and the National Mental Health Association, respectively.

These five centers, currently funded by the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), provide information and technical assistance to support the consumer self-help movement. This budgetary attack is part of a strategy to disempower not only individual consumers, but the consumer movement as a whole.

With the release of this budget, the Bush administration is ignoring a growing body of evidence indicating the value of supporting and promoting mental health consumer-run self-help services. The value of self-help and peer support was recognized by both the Surgeon General in the 1999 report Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, and in a report published by the Center for Mental Health Services, titled Consumer/Survivor-Operated Self-Help Programs: A Technical Report. Please help to restore funding to these vital services.

Please use or (preferably) adapt the sample letter found at http://www.mhasp.org/advocacy/budget-letter-2-02.html that was sent to our local U.S. Representative and our two Senators. Please insert your own Representative's and Senators' names and addresses. To find out the names and contact information for your U.S. Senators and Representatives, go to: www.vote-smart.org/index.phtml and insert your ZIP+4.

Mail the letter to your Congressperson's and Senators' local and D.C. offices.
Fax the letter to their D.C. offices.
E-mail the letter to their e-mail addresses.

Please do what you can today to ensure that these national technical assistance centers will be funded! Remember, this is a major assault on our national movement, as well as on individual consumers. For more information: Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, srogers@mhasp.org or 1-800-688-4226, x 288.