Running head: LAW AND ADVOCACY 1

Law and Advocacy

The issue I chose to discuss is the Mental Health Access Improvement Act presented on

the AMHCA website. I chose this issue as I had not come across it before this assignment and

wanted to learn more about it. If this act is passed it would benefit counseling professionals as

well as their clients. Counselors would be able to take on more clients which would produce

extra income as well as taking on a new population of clientele that could help counselors in

broadening their knowledge on many different topics. It would benefit the clients as those with

Medicare who may have not been able to obtain professional care beforehand will now have the

opportunity to seek out assistance if they choose to. This is important and meaningful to me as a

counselor as I know so many individuals who are worried about losing care when Medicare

kicks in, specifically my mother. I do not want to see her worry, or her mental health suffer due

to not qualifying for or being able to afford the proper care.

According to the American Counseling Association (2014) keeping your personal values

separate from your work with clients is important (Standard A.4.b), obtaining consent and

maintaining confidentiality if advocating on behalf of a specific client (Standard A.7.b), taking

the appropriate steps if transferring a client to another practitioner (Standard A.11.d), working

within the boundaries of your competence as those on Medicare may have different issues from

the younger population (Standard C.2.a).

The process I took was navigating to the AMHCA website and clicking on their sample

email drafts. I then updated wording throughout the email and spoke about a personal story to

help the representatives who read it, better understand why this is an important step to take. From

here I looked up who the proper representative was in the state of Georgia and emailed it to the

address listed. This project helped me to understand that we may not think there is anything we
LAW AND ADVOCACY 2

can do to help others or change the law when it comes to government, but this way of thinking is

false. All it takes is contacting the appropriate officials and speaking to them about the issues we

are facing. The more people who speak out, the better.
LAW AND ADVOCACY 3

References

American Counseling Association. (2014). 2014 ACA Code of Ethics. Retrieved from

https://www.counseling.org/Resources/aca-code-of-ethics.pdf