Hatching Creativity: Conversations on Success, Innovation, and Growth
Welcome to "Hatching Creativity: Conversations on Success, Innovation, and Growth"! Join us as we dive deep into the world of creativity and explore the minds of remarkable individuals who have achieved extraordinary success in their respective fields.
In this podcast, we believe that creativity is not limited to the realm of art and design; it encompasses every aspect of life and business. Through engaging interviews and thought-provoking discussions, we'll uncover the secrets behind harnessing creativity to drive innovation and fuel personal and professional growth.
Discover the strategies, mindset, and experiences that have propelled our guests to new heights. We'll explore guests journeys, challenges, and breakthrough moments. Be inspired by their stories, learn from their failures, and gain practical insights to apply in your own creative endeavors.
Get ready to tap into the boundless potential of your own creativity, ignite your passion, and embark on a transformative journey of success, innovation, and growth. Subscribe now and join us on this exciting adventure!
Hatching Creativity: Conversations on Success, Innovation, and Growth
What is NAATP? What they do, and advocacy information with Nikki Soda
In this episode, we speak with Nikki Soda, the Director of Membership and State Advocacy for the National Assocation of Addiction Treatment Providers (NAATP). Nikki talks about the association, what they do, and some of the current things going on in Behavioral Healthcare and Substance Use Disorder treatment. We also speak about advocacy, how to approach your lawmakers, and some ideas on helping get your ideas in front of the people who can put them into action.
Welcome to Hatching Creativity. This isn't just another behavioral health podcast. This is the place where thought leaders converge to talk about real life challenges, breakthroughs and pivotal aha moments. Hey everybody, thank you for joining us today. I have a special guest, Nikki Soda, from the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers, or NAATP. I'm really excited to have you here. Welcome, Nikki.
Speaker 2:Good morning. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to finally connect with you and to be here.
Speaker 1:Can you tell for people who are not familiar with you what you do and what a little bit about the National Association?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. My role is the Director of Membership and State Advocacy, so an important part of my job is ensuring that our members are engaged, they feel connected and they have an overall understanding of the many services and benefits that the Association has to offer. So the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers that's what NAATP stands for has been around since 1979. And so our mission is to provide education, leadership, resources, tools to our members to ensure that they're providing the highest quality of care, and to us, that is critical, and now more than ever, we need reliable treatment resources, and so the Association that is our sole purpose. Our members are our heart. We have a very, very strong value system that we carry through in everything that we produce, in all of the events that we do, and so we, as I mentioned, we've been around since 1979.
Speaker 2:And we are the longest running professional behavioral health association that's out there. We have roughly 1,100 members, and we have three different categories of members. We have providers which are brick and mortar facilities that are providing treatment services, such as Hazelden, buddy Ford, j Walker Lodge. They really range, too, from large for profits to small non-for profits, and so we have a really good feel of what is going on out in the field across the country. And then we have a supporter category, which is for organizations that provide support services to providers. So, for example, the Retreat in Minnesota. They are a facility that provides sober living. They provide some counseling services, but they are not a licensed, accredited treatment center. So they provide support services. So recovery residences fall under there.
Speaker 2:And then we have the affiliate category. An affiliate is where members like Hatch Compliance, who provide really valuable services to both supporters and providers, doesn't necessarily have to be clinical care, but it is doing something to provide those support services. Mark Don is our director of public policy. He's located in Washington DC and public policy is a really important component of the association because we want to be able to let our members know what's going on from both a federal level and the state level that's having a direct impact on them. And what we also want to do, mike, is we want to be able to help support our members if they're having issues in their state and they need a connection or they need some guidance, we want to be able to solve that.
Speaker 1:So are you guys posting anything as far as information on upcoming bills that are being voted on in different states that are relative to behavioral health, or what kind of policy work are you guys doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker 2:So we are working on a couple different initiatives right now.
Speaker 2:One of the tricky things about public policy is that sometimes, as things come in, it's hard to say all right, here's all the things that we're working on, because something new could pop up next week.
Speaker 2:So workforce has been a really important issue for us and something that we have been keeping a very tight pulse on and working on being able to help advance those resources to our members with help for tips for hiring, recruitment retention. So that's something that we've really been keeping a pulse on. The other one is there's some really interesting parity, new changes that are coming down the pipeline, and so we released recently a public policy update well, most recently last week on opioid disbursement and how it's so important, for each state is very, very different, and so it's really important to understand, okay, who in my state has the purse strings, who is allocating where the money is going, and so that was our most recent public policy update that that we released. As of right now, we do not have anything on the schedule for August for any public policy events, but we are looking to definitely do something this fall, and so stay tuned and we work really hard to get those updates out as soon as we can.
Speaker 1:You guys did the Capital Day at the Hill at the May conference and that was a great event too. That was. It's good when you can get a group together and kind of go as an organization. I feel I find that to be really helpful and powerful. You know, it's really intimidating when you're just going by yourself or if you're going to try to reach out to somebody on your own. It would be great if there was a way to get the state associations connected with you guys so that you are able to make things more publicly available. You know, in North Carolina we did one and Raleigh in Texas I did one in Austin, south Carolina, columbia. You know there's a, there's a few, and I love how you guys have the that reach and there may be providers that are not in the state association but our national association members. That would be pretty, you know, pretty interesting. Maybe some sort of a bulletin board where states can post this too, that's an excellent idea.
Speaker 2:An excellent idea, mike, and so Sherri Layton is unfortunate to have her as a mentor, and she is one of the leads for TAP, which is the the yes, in Texas, so for for Austin's Hill Day, and so we are in a very close connection with with Texas, with California too, also with Minnesota.
Speaker 2:They have a very, very strong march Is there is their acronym, and so I love the idea of a bulletin board. We do a little bit a version of that with our member to member. It can definitely use some higher engagement, but I think that I think that that is definitely one of the goals that we have for having connections with the state associations, because one of the things is there is no need to start from scratch, right If that's a waste of time, energy and resources, and so what we really want to do is build upon what's working and making stronger and better.
Speaker 1:That's great. It's so necessary because, as we were talking earlier, the politicians unless they're really sponsoring a bill they may have more knowledge or information on whatever their specific topic is or whatever that bill is, but most of the time the politicians are speaking for their constituents and what they want. So if you know how to get in touch with them and how to advocate to the legislators, you're going to have a much better chance of getting what you want to see in action. If somebody was to want to be more vocal or to get involved and make changes themselves, what would you recommend the steps to be for somebody to do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's an excellent question, and we actually have an exact blueprint for how to do that.
Speaker 2:So we have our advocacy toolkit that we created. That starts from everything from an extreme novice step by step guides of how you can contact your legislator, how to formulate an email, how to get your message across, how to get your talking points across, and so that's available on our website, mike, and it's available to anyone. So it's not just a member benefit, it's for those in the community who are looking to get involved, and so we created this with the goal of we really want to have a recovery hill day in every single state. So that is the, that is the ultimate goal, and so this is just one piece that can help with that. But the toolkit is also, if you have you know things, big impacts happen local, and so, with city commissioners, it is that you can use the same steps for a city commissioner as you can for a representative at in some aspects, and so this toolkit is very broad and it's a nice blueprint to give you the nuts and bolts and essentially everything you need.
Speaker 1:Awesome, I will put. I will put a link to that in the notes here so that so people can access that easily.
Speaker 2:And we have a webinar on how to utilize it too, and so that could be helpful as well.
Speaker 1:Awesome. Yeah, make sure to share that. And I'm curious also you were saying city commissioners. Can you tell a little bit about the power that a city commissioner may have? I wouldn't have thought of starting at that level. I was thinking more to go to state.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so I live in Palm Beach County and our city commissioners have a tremendous amount of impact on some of the regulations and the rules that go on here within Palm Beach County, and so we have two very solid allies recovery champions, we should call them that have helped pass some really important city ordinances that have had a very that have had a huge impact on sober living regulations that we really needed down here, and so that's a great example of something that advocating for something in your local community that has that can have a very swift impact now, granted, getting the ordinance passed to two years so that's not swift.
Speaker 2:With advocacy that I'm sure you know it is a hurry up and wait process. It is not for the impatient at heart, but the reward is so worth it, and so these ordinances that we have passed in our backyard then make it a more safe environment, and so that that part is really important and that's something to that you can start right off the bat get to know. Do you get to know who your city council members are? Who is your mayor? You know who are the players that are that are having an impact in your backyard.
Speaker 1:That's really helpful to know that you can go at the city and county level as well. You know you don't have to trek up to the capital and reach out to people there to make a difference. I'm curious. I know Florida is pretty unique and Texas is looking to make these changes, and I'm not sure if that bill passed. But you were talking about recovery residences and the Department of Children and Families in Florida requires that the level 4s have, which is a. For those of you who don't know, a level 4 recovery residence is one where it's actually staffed, it's actually got clinical staff, and they're requiring now that the level 4s are all FAR Florida Association of Recovery Residents certified or accredited. That's coming out in Texas as well. Is that one of the things that you guys were working on with them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I am a very proud member of the Palm Beach County sober home task force, and I have to say that those regulations came out of that task force that was started by Dave Ehrenberg back in 2018. And legislation was passed due to this task force that was started, and so that is something that I wish could be spread nationwide these different task force that are composed of a mix of people with lived experience, with police officers, with ER docs, with treatment center folks and with who would be another one We've got a couple lawyers that are on there, too so it's a mix of individuals with a common goal that work to create a safer environment.
Speaker 1:That's. It's necessary, right we? We hear stories all the time about things going sideways and not knowing what to do, not having policy. I mean, granted, it's a recovery residence, right, people just think that it's a place where you can live, but there are certain requirements and knowledge that people have to have in order to be safe at a recovery residence. You know, just as an aside, we are doing something really cool with FAR. And have you heard, do you know, heidi and Josh and those guys at FAR?
Speaker 2:I very, yes, I do.
Speaker 1:So what we're doing at FAR is we are now the exclusive software for FAR. So, we're in process of, you know, finalizing it. But the recovery residences all will apply, get their applications reviewed, all their documentation submitted, their payments all get done through the FAR portal, but it's all done through Hatch.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:And what's going to happen is all of their documentation, all of their background checks and training on safety, things like that. That's all going to be done in track through Hatch. So you know, when looking at things that are safe, right and safety compliance is is a tool used to make a safer environment. You know that people are in. And then what's really cool is, before the way they were doing it was they had a team of people that would drive around and survey these, these houses, and you can't survey that that frequently. I mean it's very expensive, very time consuming and it also gives them good data on what's actually happening at the residences. You know where the referrals are coming from, the whole thing. So once this gets pushed out through FAR, it's going to make the application process easier to. You know, it's a pain in the ass to get done. So once we get finished piloting this, we're going to do it also with go to other states with it as well.
Speaker 2:That's great and one of the nice things you mentioned Carolina earlier. North Carolina has has come to a couple of different super home task force meetings to replicate the work that that we're doing here, and so I am a I'm a big regulations advocate. I think that they are important to safety, and so for me, far has been a. I'm really glad to hear that hatch compliance is is working with FAR, so they've got some really good people over there and it has done. It's really helped clean up the recovery residents in the state of Florida.
Speaker 1:It's. It's good to see that there's some changes there. You know, recovery Florida kind of set a pretty low bar for for a while, you know, with just in the industry itself and it's cool to see the growth and the changing and it really seems like the like Heidi, josh, patrick, you know all the people that are involved, michael are all really doing some good things for the, for people, to help them have less hurdles. Thanks for tuning into hatching creativity. We appreciate your support. Please don't forget to like and subscribe until all your friends about the show and remember it's never just about one thing.
