CHRIS JOHNSON
communications specialist
THE PRESENTATION
Just When You Think You're Too Old to Be Nervous...
In January of 2022, I still had very little idea how the Georgia General Assembly (legislature) works. I don't know that even now I could explain the actual process as a textbook would lay it out, but the grinding of the sausage that happens 40 days each year—that I now have direct knowledge of. Which is why I was nervous going in to testify at this subcommittee hearing. You never know for sure how it will go, and everyone there has an agenda (or more).
Just a few weeks later we found ourselves surrounded by protesters convinced by talk radio that H.B. 1013 (promoted as the "Mental Health Parity Act" by its authors, but really more a of a "Law Enforcement Power Grab Act" in truth) would cause all sorts of unspeakably outrageous and horrific things to happen to our children. And, while I'm no great supporter of H.B. 1013 (as I call it in my attempts at neutrality) it does not do the things my own mother called me to question me about.
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The constituency I was representing (directly, Certified Peer Specialists, but more broadly anyone with a mental health diagnosis that might ever become a Certified Peer Specialist) was largely unknown to these legislators. Neither my name, nor that of the organization paying me to be there, was familiar to the vast majority of them, though I knew a few through the previous year's session.
I had 10 minutes to explain to this subcommittee who I was, who I represented, why they should listen to me, and what I wanted from them. In short, I explained that one answer to the many questions stemming from the root "How do we economically and quickly solve Georgia's behavioral health workforce" question is Certified Peer Specialists, who my organization is paid by the state to train, test, and certify; and to help them maintain certification for their Medicaid-billable service through continuing education.
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At that particular moment in time, several of the other trainings embedded in the training ecosystem and offered by my organization had their budgets slashed in half, halfway through the fiscal year, by the department where we receive our funding, with no advance warning, and without a contract being in place—though we had the word of the department that they would finalize the contracts and pay what was owed (a little over $400k, which is not a lot in state budget terms, but for nonprofits with a $6m budget, it is literally an existential amount). This sort of unwritten agreement, which we and thousands of other small organizations had agreed to in order to receive contracts at all, had been a decades-long practice. This breech, at this particularly momentous moment in time—mental health legislation of anything close to this magnitude had not been seen in Georgia in 30 years—was as perplexing as it was troubling. While no one would acknowledge making the request to reduce our budget, no one was willing to restore it, either, leaving us in the strange predicament of asking for additional funding in future years to fill the state's own need for workers, while also trying to get current fiscal year funds restored to us by a state department, through the legislature, to avoid laying off more than half our staff within weeks.
So where did I turn? Color, and Futura.
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When putting together the graphics package for GMHCN, I purposefully avoided the typeface Futura (brought to my attention in the 1980s by the artist Barbara Kruger, more recently and widely popularized by the Supreme clothing brand). It had been my go-to typeface since I was an undergraduate. The full fellowship I received to study typeface design as a graduate student at SCAD was largely a result of my use of Futura throughout my first SCAD MFA program in Interior Design. I am pleased with the typeface families I chose for GMHCN, but in this particular moment, I needed to be grounded and certain and comfortable. I needed an old friend with me in that hearing room, and it was Futura.
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I also needed color. If there was ever a room laden with the banality of 21st century governance, it is central chamber of any state house of government in America, where the 50 shades of grey gather with their brethren, the 12 shades of tan, 6 shades of blue, 4 shades of black, and one bold red (tie) that define the modern political palette in a thoroughly bipartisan (and pedestrian) way.
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We had been advised by some not to ask for anything more than what we have—to show gratitude for what we have, and to work hard to demonstrate the value we all produce for the state.
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When considering whether or not to color outside the lines in this first presentation I would make before the legislature, I decided (with the input of several folks helping me through my learning-by-fire experience) that showing from the very beginning that Certified Peer Specialists are different, that how Certified Peer Specialists are trained, how they succeed in performing their tasks, is different. As a behavioral health profession, Certified Peer Specialists need to be considered separately, and through another lens. A PowerPoint template would not send that message, but this did, in a subtle and nuanced way. The slides couldn't be said to be rebellious or anti-authoritarian, or even contrarian. But in a room full of templates, they could say "we are not templates."
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Though very text-heavy (by necessity, these slides would become a part of the official record of the hearing, and the data references couldn't be in the notes) they nonetheless were able to help establish a framework of understanding of what Certified Peer Specialists are, and what peer support can accomplish.
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In 2024, after the completion of a rate study (by Deloitte) ordered by the legislature at the end of the 2022 legislative session, the Medicaid provider reimbursement rate for Certified Peer Specialists in Georgia doubled, and the pay rate of the people providing those services is (hopefully, and by design) going to rise with it.
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At the same time, the State of Georgia has been meeting with me and my colleagues at GMHCN and our allied organizations providing similar trainings to determine how to ramp up trainings so that the CPS workforce in Georgia can be tripled in the near future to meet capacity needs both immediately and as Georgia continues its rapid growth.
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Did Futura do it? No. Neither did I. Mine was but one voice among many asking for variations of the same things. But for most of those legislators, mine was the first voice they heard describe Certified Peer Specialists, and Futura was there with me.
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The Standard Lot
Since my authentic self usually shows up during presentations, I just get it out of the way at the start.
For routine presentations, I rely on the standby PowerPoint bases (with lots of color) and as few words as possible--basically the opposite of what I did for the legislature.
Keeping presentations relevant, responsive, and flexible while making the critical points and achieving critical goals is where I live in the presentation world.
Pretending I am not a part of the presentation is not real, so I up front talk about who I am and what I bring to the table with enough authenticity to be trusted but not more interesting than the presentation topic itself.
The New Template
The First Friday meetings I introduced to GMHCN as Interim Executive Director were the first ever regularly scheduled staff meetings held there, and the occasion called for something to emphasize our diversity, our other-than existence that could acknowledge there were areas where we were going to begin looking like other organizations with 100 employees. Like staff meetings, for instance. It was also the opportunity to introduce myself to the many staffers I had never even crossed paths with, due to our geographical breadth and 24/7 operations.
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It was here that committees were formed to establish a new handbook (and policies to go into it) and an understanding of the organization the employees wanted the handbook to be a guide for.
