i want to come back to that. we'll be right back. [music] before, addiction and depression kept me from living my life. and now every step i take in recovery benefits everyone. there are many options that make the road to recovery more accessible. it begins with the first step. join the voices for recovery. for information and treatment referral for you or someone you love, call 1-800-662-help. brought to you by the u.s. department of health and human services. [music]

the national alliance on mental illness, also known as nami, has a mission to help improve the lives of people affected by mental illness. the bottom line is to save lives and to support recovery. our approach in support groups and education groups and what we do on the information helpline really has to do with recovery and the ability of each person to live in the community as much as possible to engage and to give people the idea that recovery is a possibility, that people with these illnesses from

depression to schizophrenia live in the community and have lives and work, and none of this means that your life is going to come to an end. in my lifetime, people used to whisper about cancer. they wouldn't talk about it. it was not talked about. and it's the same with mental illness-that people don't want to talk about it because it can be debilitating. it's critical that we really do have a national dialogue on it and that the national dialogue frankly not focus on worst case scenario, but really focus on recovery. reaching out, speaking out, and changing attitudes usually involves personal contact. you have to meet people in the public sector where they are, because if you don't, you won't reach them. you won't get to them, and you can do that through flyers, through newsletters, all the websites, teleconferences, webinars.

all these activities promote community awareness. that's where we depend very much on the in our own voice program. it's part of that broader person-to-person strategy. the in our own voice program has two people living with a mental illness that kind of walk through from their dark days, understanding their diagnosis, how they got help, what living in recovery looks like for them. and then we give the audience a chance to ask questions, and in many ways that's the most powerful part of it, because we say is there something you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask? ask us. we've lived this, and we can guarantee you that nothing you're going to ask us isn't things we haven't heard before, and we know you wonder. nami helpline. this is anne. may i help you? at the helpline where i work, we seek to get the word out about nami's community presence. on the helpline we speak to, really, the full gamut of

people who have some connection to mental illness. we talk to people with mental illnesses. we talk to family members a lot, and we talk to professionals, and then everybody is some conglomeration of that, even our staff. so if we can get the word out to people that there's hope to say no, there are other people in your town who have the same problem and they thought they were the only ones, i think that's very powerful. [music] nami walks and nami bikes bring people together because they reach out to and draw in people who are not necessarily part of the mental health community. they are upbeat, creative, celebration events that draws people and helps get them involved in-in thinking about mental illness.

you have to go on a walk in order to get the full feeling of a walk. it is the most camaraderie. i have been on almost every nami walk since the inception. we walk for nami. we are here to reduce stigma. that's the biggest tings for the walks and the bikes, to reduce the stigma surrounding mental wellness. the other impact is that people in the community see-the broad community-see who the people are in the mental health community. they realize that it's their neighbors and friends. that makes a difference. that's part-that's part of education. and fran, let's go back to what arthur was saying about what the aca is doing in terms of behavioral health. i know pam has been extremely active through cms, through other federal agencies, to attempt to position the issue of behavioral health.

what does that entail? well, it entails a-a few things in all of the different levels of services that samhsa offers under behavioral health. in the prevention area, we're looking at what services are we going to fund, what is fundable. now we're looking-what is going to be funded are the interventions, and that's not going to cover all the prevention services, so this screening and brief intervention that was discussed earlier, that is an opportunity for us to get coverage across the country. prevention services at the community level, which we can talk about later, doesn't need to be covered, so we're gonna-we can talk about how they relate. the electronic health records. electronic health records across the country will help us out enormously, and we're spending a lot of time working with cms and working with insurance companies and helping them understand how being connected will help stopping

people from going to different doctors across state lines and such like that. we're also looking at helping to bring the community together and getting them engaged, so that they know that they can go and ask for services for substance abuse and mental health-to be able to be covered under their insurance companies from a state level, because although the federal government can fight and work for getting many of our services recognized at the level of federal government with insurance under aca, the real work is happening at the state and the communities. arthur, you were talking about some community efforts that need to take place. you want to expand on that? well, i think we've had what i call a black box approach to treatment and the issue of behavioral health conditions, which basically means we build a treatment black box in the community, we wait for people to recognize that they need help, and then passively, hopefully, people will come to treatment. that approach really doesn't work.

well, i shouldn't say it doesn't work. it doesn't work as effectively as if we had a different paradigm, a paradigm that understood that what we have to do is to engage communities. we have to get out of sort of the treatment black box and look at how do we take a public health approach to this issue in the same way that we have with-with physical health conditions. most people know that if you wash your hands, you can save a lot of money just on health care costs because people don't get sick. well, there are things that we know from a behavioral health standpoint that if we do those things, people won't develop addictions or they won't develop mental health problems. and so, we have to put more emphasis on those kinds of things, and those things require us to have a different kind of relationship with the community. we need to be talking about the importance of addressing early childhood experiences in terms of trauma, for example. studies show that people who experience a lot of adverse childhood events are more likely to have a whole host of issues,

including behavioral health conditions. and so if we can intervene early in those kinds of-in people's lives, it prevents people from developing problems later on. and john, you wanted to add some points related to- well, i was just thinking, you know, faces & voices of recovery has done a great job mobilizing the recovery community across the country, and what we're discovering, that things aren't equal across the country. granted, there's pockets of funding out there for treatment and nobody gets enough funding, but the recovery and support services, peer delivery recovery support services, they-they get hardly anything. and if you could throw a little bit of funds on those alone, remember, you've got 25 million americans in recovery. they're itching to get into the game. the 25 million americans that need recovery-it's almost as if there's an invisible barrier there to access these dollars

to deliver these services to get this great outcome. so the recovery community has got to do a better job articulating their needs and how we're going to get there without offending everybody, and that's a delicate balancing act. it is a delicate balance, and that-that-that sort of public education, pat, i know you have some programs that promote, as john was saying, this-this particular perspective. right. all across the country people in recovery are engaged now as service providers, providing peer recovery support services, and one of the exciting opportunities with the implementation of the affordable care act is new roles in our health system for people in recovery. so, for example, if we want to encourage people to enroll in health reform to help people navigate this new system, there may be new-i think there will be new opportunities for people to be trained in these new roles. but also, that there's this growing network of innovative services that are helping people initiate the recovery,

help people while they are receiving treatment to support their recovery, and then once they're back in the community, to connect with the other supports and resources that people need because, for recovery to happen in communities where it does happen, people also need access to housing, access to employment, access to other kinds of supports to help them sustain the recovery for the long haul. so our-our opportunity really as an organized recovery community is to advocate on behalf of an essential health benefit in the state of virginia that will reimburse for those peer recovery support services but also for a health system that connects individuals with other supports that they need in the community. which are much more cost effective than recidivism or relapse. absolutely. absolutely. you know, we're the best bang for the buck, but we can't even get a nickel, and-and sadly, we can't even get our own policymakers, our own bureaucrats. we can't even convince them to step up for us, so we've got some work to do in that area.

i think john is right. i think that there are pockets. so in philadelphia, for example, my agency has spent a tremendous amount of resources in both helping to develop peer-based services and to deliver them, and in fact, in-in-in our case, i actually require that any new service that comes into our system build into its budget peers, because we know that people who have lived experience working in these programs are enormously effective at engaging people, keeping people connected to treatment, and, frankly, making treatment more effective. so i think that-i think that it is a-it is a varied kind of field now, but i think it needs to be more standardized and more acceptable across the board, but, you know, policymakers, i think if they're willing to be creative and willing to stretch out of the box, can do some things even within the current environment. it just takes a little political will to do it. and a good example of this is the growing network of recovery high schools and recovery programs in colleges,

so thinking about the current situations in which young people find themselves who are in recovery from addiction, helping them recover at an early age. you know, pat, i must have been channeling to you because i just wanted to get to the youth part of this. i know most of what we've talked about in terms of peer recovery has been in the adult sector of-of the recovery community, and we really need to get, as we're talking about prevention and so on, talk about using young people in recovery, you know, for-for prevention purposes and-and to help educate the public. so indeed, you know, the recovery schools, the recovery programs, we've started, you know, with the young people in recovery, and-and they've done extremely, extremely well to create a presence. oh, and we have these videos on our website of young people in recovery. there's nothing more exciting than seeing a 20-year-old in recovery for 3 years, you know, who talks about their new life, and that's really what

health reform's all about, that's really what talking about addiction and mental illness as a health condition is all about: helping people get help early and staying out of our criminal justice system. that's a great example right there. the recovery community has no barriers against youth. however, our systems are designed to have different protocols for different age limits, and that's just crazy. they've got to get wise in that area. well, the thing about this whole issue, and let's get back to-to the-the subject matter, which is really getting the message out, and i'm going to give each one of you, because we're almost running out of time, an opportunity to tell me who your top audience is and what would you tell them in terms of improving the communication about the aca, about our issues. you get one shot at this, and i'm going to start with fran. from samhsa's point of view, our audience is america. we don't have subsets of america to look to, so

i-i will collect them-bring them all together. collaboration is the key. if you hear about messaging that will-everything we've been talking about is about messaging. and we-if you could see-this is not a sprint. this a marathon. this is going to take us years to do. but we have to get ready, and to get ready, we need to begin to help collaborate from the federal government where our role can be to help the states and the communities collaborate together. youth, peers, young people that are-are in our recovery and are going to be peers, they-they're far better and their reach is much more when connected with a prevention program. that prevention program can fair far better when connected with a treatment program or the families of treatment that are supporting someone in long-term-in treatment before they get into long-term recovery. and then, lastly, we need to be having a collaborative

relationship with insurance companies, with health care companies, with all different programs that we've already mentioned because we-we need to begin to have america talk about addictions and mental health issues around the thanksgiving table just like they do about cancer and heart disease and diabetes. arthur? and i want to take off on-on the last point because i-i think that that is a great analogy for what we have to do. if you think about breast cancer, for example, 30, 40 years ago people whispered the-the words, right? people didn't talk about it. today, people, you know, wear pink. i think many, probably thousands of people have been saved. their lives have been saved because of the awareness about that. we have a-a lot of resources that are going into-to both prevention and treatment and so forth. i think-our-my goal is to have the same thing happen in-in terms of behavioral health conditions.

when one out of five, one out of four people are affected by a condition, that is a lot of people, and if you're talking about mental illness, for example, that's what the numbers are. if you look at addiction, again, you have a large segment of the population that are affected by these conditions. if we can get the broader community to understand both the impact and the importance in the same way that we have with cancer, i think we can make a huge amount of difference, and that's what our goal is. that's why the recovery walk is so important to us. it's raising people's awareness-why we're doing things like online screening and so forth, because it's raising people's awareness in a way that-that mobilizes the community around this issue. very good. thank you, pat? our target audience is the recovery community, people in recovery and family members, and the message is that recovery is a reality, and, following up on what arthur said, it's to educate the public and others that people can and do recover, so that's our first message.

our second message is to come together and organize and mobilize to influence public policy, because that's really where the rubber hits the road in terms of making sure, for example, that essential health benefits include peer recovery support services. so that's our message. john? you know, the authentic recovery community has got to take responsibility for their future. you cannot keep relying on other organization, groups, agencies to find in our lives our recovery and our future. so our responsibility is step up, be heard, be accurate in our description of what we need, how we want to do it. collaboration is important, but we have got to have our rightful place and funding for this. you know, we have got to stop being scared, fearful, shameful, get out of those basements, get up, get on the first floor, and be part of this thing. and, indeed, we want to remind our audience that

recovery month , this is a particularly good time to take all these messages that we've heard in this show and to really bring them home to policymakers, elected officials, and everyone who needs to be engaged in our field of mental and substance use disorder recovery. and for that, we encourage you to go recoverymonth.gov and get engaged, get involved, not only in september, but throughout the year. thank you. it's been a great show. for a copy of this program or other programs in the road to recovery series, call samhsa at 1-800-662-help, or order online at recoverymonth.gov and click on the video radio web tab. every september, national recovery month provides an opportunity for communities like yours to raise awareness of substance use and mental health problems to highlight the

effectiveness of treatment and that people can and do recover. in order to help you plan events and activities, in commemoration of this year's recovery month observance, the free online recovery month kit offers ideas, materials, and tools for planning, organizing, and realizing an event or outreach campaign that matches your goals and resources. to obtain an electronic copy of this year's recovery month kit and gain access to other free publications and materials related to recovery issues, visit the recovery month website at www.recoverymonth.gov or call 1-800-662-help. [music]

>> thank you for your patience. i m leader pelosi's district rector in san francisco. i've been with the for about nine years, and we are excited

to put on this forum today to help people learn how they can access credit and capital for their small business. click background on some of what was accomplished in the last congress when later closing was speaker of the house. she had had 16 tax cuts signed into law to help small businesses grow and thrive. as we know, during the last 15 years, small businesses account for about 2/3 of the job growth in our country, but when the bush recession hits in 2009, 2010, small businesses were hit particularly hard. small businesses are the center of her agenda. congress under her leadership gave 27 million small businesses tax cuts. two main pieces of legislation -- the small businesses jobs act in the information you have,

will create a total of 500,000 jobs and create eight tax cuts. they are all described in the packet you have. also, unleashing up to $300 billion in credit for small businesses to access. there are another eight tax cuts that were passed through a number of different laws. some of our panelists will address those. even though now we are in an environment where there is a republican majority in the house and a slimmer majority in the senate, please note that the leader and democrats are going fight hard to keep their agenda and restart our economy, and there will be more work to be done. i would like to hand over the podium to nicole rivera, who put this together. she will introduce the panelists and go over some logistics. i want to point out quickly that we are being recorded by san francisco government tv. the camera in front is only

aimed at the podium. it is not taking shots of the audience, only the podium for people who want to ask questions. so do not worry, you are not on tv if you do not want to be. >> thank you for your patience. i am a representative with leader pelosi, and i'm thrilled to have you today to learn more of our best practices for accessing credit. it is a priority for our office. we are very well aware of how small businesses are running up against the wall right now in terms of trying to get the credit and loans they are looking for, so i will try hard to bring the brightest minds in this room so you can effectively fix their range and learn more about what you can do better to fix your business plan and what it is they are looking for. first of all, i will introduce everyone. mark quinn is the san francisco

district director of the u.s. small business administration. the small business administration covers not only san francisco proper but the bay area. the severed his third district is responsible for a business loan portfolio of 12,000 loans worth $4.2 billion. in 2009, the sba approved $500 million in lending. next, we have the executive director of the san francisco small business office. she was in san francisco in 1986 to open the buffalo exchange limited store, and in the 13 years she worked for buffalo exchange, tennis district manager, she held her open the company from four to 11 stores. in 2009, the mayor appointed her as executive director to the office of small businesses. next, we have the ceo of

opportunity funds. he has combined his background as a community organizer with an education from stanford to develop an innovative, not-for- profit financial incision that uses market principles to affect systemic change. it operates one of the nation's largest individual development, programs, a leading provider of micro loans in california, and has a robust community real estate finance unit. next, we have the ceo of ne community federal credit union. since 1988, she has been the ceo of northwest community federal credit union. under her watch, the credit union group to over 1600 members. it has become the national model for institutions seeking to provide financial education and banking services to the low- income communities. last but not least, we have our conditional lender represented here by wells fargo. mark cyrus is the senior fda

banker for the region -- the senior sba banker. he held businesses choose the best loans for the growing business and focus on a comprehensive understanding of their goals for their business. mark is responsible for helping entrepreneurs with sba loans every step of the way. i would like each of you to speak a little bit about what your organization does and, more importantly, address the audience here and let them know what your looking for when you are hoping to fund their loan. we will start with you, mark. >> absolutely. thank you. i want to thank speaker pelosi for putting this together. i want to thank all of the of for coming out on a smell it -- snowy san francisco date.

[laughter] we've been told we should get us know when we go back outside. not sure what to expect. second, i thank speaker pelosi for all the work she did to support the jobs act and before that, the stimulus bill, the original american recovery act bill that allows sba to be able to besba landing more available to small businesses. very important piece of our tools that we have in this really very difficult time for small businesses to get access to credit. finally, i want to find the rest of the folks here, my colleagues on the panel. it is the case that sba works with these organizations to try to help small businesses understand how to get credit and fine tools to be able to do that. sba programs cover a wide range, and i will talk about this range of lending and the kinds of

things we do, but in many ways, we do not do it alone. we do it with partners, and that is the takeaway message, the sba lending activity, while would guarantee loans through a number of lenders, we do it with a lot of other partners as well. let me give a little bit of a sense of what the small business administration does and is. we in san francisco covered the bay area and north coast counties, and we do a variety of things. i will come back to the credit card because i know that is what this session is about, but before i do that, there's two other roles we play that are important as well. one is about helping small businesses understand how to start businesses, getting good technical assistance, getting good advice about starting and managing your business. equally important is being prepared for credit. one of the things we tried to do is work with small businesses to understand how to be ready for

credit. a lot of that is helping folks that are interested in starting a business understand how to develop a business plan, how to get good advice about starting and managing a business. we see a lot of small businesses interested in starting a business, and they have a talent or skill or craft, and they know what they want to do, but they really need to structure a rounded to do it. part of what they need, through partners, through score, through our business centers that we have in san francisco, and through the small business development center we also have here, really help small businesses understand how to get started in business, how to develop business plans, how to be able to put yourself in a position of planning for your business as much as running your business. a big part of what we do is the technical assistance and counseling work we do for folks interested in starting a business or those in the early stages who really need advice about where to go when you run