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Episode 41: Robb Layne Talks Lived Experience in SUD Policy Advocacy
40 Plays6 days ago
In this episode, we talk to Robb Layne, the executive director of CADP, about advocacy, integrating behavioral health services, and the importance of community-based treatment.
Visit our website at www.nbhap.org.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Destination Change' and Guest Introduction
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to Destination Change, a podcast where we talk recovery, treatment and more. I'm your host, Andy Fiedler-Sutton with the National Behavior Health Association providers. I know you see her pronouns. My guest today is Rob Lane.
00:00:23
Speaker
Rob Lane, he, him, is the executive director of the California Association of Alcohol and Drug Program Executives. The only statewide association representing the full continuum of substance use disorder treatment and recovery services in California, Rob has played a central role in transforming the association into a major force in the SDD policy arena, strengthening in its financial position, broadening its membership impact, and significantly expanding its visibility and policy footprint on behalf of providers across the state.
00:00:48
Speaker
Graduated the University of California, Davis, Rob has built a career defined by public service, strategic leadership, and a deep understanding of California's health and human services landscape. His professional past has spanned of multiple sectors, giving him a unique ability to connect policy, operations, and real-world systems change.
Rob Lane's Career and Personal Influences
00:01:06
Speaker
He began his career in the California State Assembly and State Senate, where he spent more than a decade serving the the legislation and committee staff. Rob brings a deeply personal perspective to his work. As a parent of a son living with serious mental illness, he understands firsthand the importance of responsive, compassionate and effective behavioral health systems.
00:01:23
Speaker
that That lived experience informs his advocacy and leadership, grounding his policy work in the realities faced by individuals and families navigating care. Welcome to Destination Change, Rob. Thank you for having me. I appreciate being here.
00:01:34
Speaker
Now, long time listeners are going to know exactly what my first question is because it's the same question for everybody because I'm always interested in hearing kind of of what I call origin stories, basically how you got into the business, why you chose this versus say a accounting or about yeah entertainment. you know There's a billion careers at that. What made you decide to go into this?
00:01:54
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting because I don't think a lot of people choose this business. This business chooses them. I feel really strongly about the people that I work with, whether it be my staff members at Cadpe or my colleagues that do statewide policy, that they find something or something found them that called them really to work in this space.
00:02:17
Speaker
I actually like you just said a second ago, started out by working in the Capitol and I had a list of wonderful mentors that really inspired me. Somebody that really sticks out would be then Assemblymember Wesley Chesborough, who actually made it part of his policy book to represent people with disabilities. And part of what I did is help advise him on policies related to people with developmental disabilities, people with... And that that this was back when mental health and substance use disorder was qualified as a disability. right It's super interesting context.
00:02:52
Speaker
And so when I worked my way through the Capitol, I found that it was something that was really, really, really important for me. I have lived experience around family members who have a substance use disorder. So at that moment, when I was in my young 20s, I was really able to marry this person that was wildly inspiring for me, this great assembly member that was wildly celebrated for being this leader in this field. And then also, it was able to sort of dovetail with the experience that I had.
00:03:19
Speaker
From there, it was an interesting sort of... navigate It was interesting navigating my professional career because how do you make a business? How do you create a career around what I'll call them safety net services?
00:03:33
Speaker
And I found that there's an entire group, there's an entire career path, there's an entire community of individuals that are basically driving advancements in substance use disorder and Medicaid services. In California, it's Medi-Cal, in mental health services.
Mission and Role of CADPE
00:03:51
Speaker
And so I was really able to sort of help navigate that. i worked at the County Behavioral Health Directors Association. In California, the counties play a major role in providing care and about three and a half years ago, I was recruited to lead CADPE. Now, CADPE the California Association for Alcohol and Drug Program Executives.
00:04:10
Speaker
But that really is just short for, we're the people in California that represent providers who keep people alive to make sure that they have a second chance to make sure that they can receive community-based, robust treatment.
00:04:25
Speaker
So that's what we do. And that's how I got into it. but Okay. I always like to ask also with people who are executive directors, I know there's no such thing as an average day. To put a point, what exactly do you do do we do? It's interesting. When I first started this job, i think about things from like a pie chart perspective. And this is an executive to executive sort of like thought and strategy. When I first started my job, my pie chart was mostly like Oh my gosh, this issue is on fire. What the heck am I going to do? How am I going to solve this problem? A small sliver was like maybe thinking about what the next day was going to look like. And then a very, very, very small sliver was like just me and doing my job without any emergency. So you know the first part of my job, because there was so much to do, was really heavily weighted in in a lot of these fires that we had to put out. But I work every day right now to do really a third strategic planning,
00:05:18
Speaker
dealing with whatever emergency we have in California around substance use disorder. And then the third is really just trying to like you know do payroll, meet with staff, staff development, making sure that people that I'm working with have me as a resource to them. i think that one of the biggest things that I do for staff is just hiring right person, getting out of their way and helping them remove barriers. So that last third is really more about that.
00:05:45
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah, I'm a very big fan of bosses that trust their employees. Having had bosses that have not in the past. yeah yeah And it's it's also interesting because within each one of those thirds, there's these really sort of interesting and stressful things. right So that could be negotiating legislative amendments with my policy staff on a piece of legislation that we're trying to put forward. Keep in mind, California is a full-time legislature.
00:06:16
Speaker
So we have a lot of activity around statewide policy and regulations or meeting with the department or you know figuring out that there's a new regulation coming out that, gosh, our state department's wanting our opinion on. So you know some of that stuff is super interesting, but it's also you know high stress.
00:06:32
Speaker
Yeah, you're not my first advocate on the list. and I've interviewed Andrew Kessler, our advocate in and in Washington, D.C. was one of our prior interviewees. I've also interviewed a couple other people who do advocacy.
00:06:42
Speaker
So i you know I kind of know what you're going say
Challenges in Substance Use Disorder Advocacy and Treatment
00:06:45
Speaker
with this. Advocacy, especially nowadays, is becoming more and more important. What would you say is the biggest kind of hurdle for getting advocacy advocacy going?
00:06:54
Speaker
stigma, fragmentation, and the political will. so when we think about when we think about substance use disorder and we think about overdoses, the issue that I think keeps getting missed within our space is the most vulnerable amongst us have already overdosed and died.
00:07:14
Speaker
When it comes to California politics, a lot of people just feel like their job is to help individuals who are in need of services, but they don't necessarily think that their job is the call it to action to get involved to change statewide policy.
00:07:32
Speaker
I also believe that the consumer voice isn't centered as much as it should be. So one of the things that we believe at Cadp and one of the things that my board and executive committee feel really strongly about is the person closest to the problem is the person closest to the solution.
00:07:52
Speaker
So how are we within this space creating an opportunity for those who have lived experience, Whether they're at the beginning of their journey of recovery, they're far enough away from chaotic use that they can be involved in advocacy. How are we making sure that they're the ones that are putting forward the policies that are affecting the services that they are trying to seek?
00:08:16
Speaker
How are we providing robust community care? All of the details, whether that be federal funding, FFP, all that stuff needs to float into the background, right? Nobody cares how things are paid for. They only care if the services that they need are working for them.
00:08:31
Speaker
So, yeah, we've talked about stigma before and how that's one of the many hurdles people call. One of the reasons this podcast is called Destination Change is because we are big on recovery capital and that recovery is a journey, not a straight line.
00:08:44
Speaker
Other than stigma, what would you say are some of the other hurdles that you've seen that are present nowadays for people to kind of stop them from moving forward easier? I guess is the best way to put it. Yeah. If I get back to the hurdles question, can I re-loop back on the stigma issue? Because I want i want to make a couple of points on that before we move forward. I think that the traditional idea of stigma is limiting us as a system.
00:09:09
Speaker
I know that people think of stigma around you know shame around accessing services, shame around telling their story. But I want to think about stigma around the perspective of administrative burden, insurance decisions, paperwork reduction, and those kinds of things. So when you think about your experience, you go to your primary care doctor. And i love my primary care doctor. So this is not me making anybody a bad guy here. But you go to the primary care doctor, they have a little bit of a conversation between the two of you. They maybe do a screening and they check a couple of boxes. And then you go and you leave. And the doctor goes off to the next person and all of the
00:09:46
Speaker
you know the information that is discussed during that visit. It's sort of put into the computer as as you're going and you can sort of go about your day. That is not the experience that people who work in substance use disorder have.
00:09:57
Speaker
They have to fill out so much paperwork. They have to be so creative around the screenings that they're doing. Many of the people that I work with, many of the CEOs that run these lifesaving programs have to spend more administrative time to bill for services than their primary care peers. So I think stigma around that is really, really important. I also want to call out the stigma around fraud, waste and abuse.
00:10:26
Speaker
There is this feeling in the services that we're providing that providers are not doing the right thing. And it's really driven by these news stories of these bad actors. But the reality of it is, is that there are providers out there that are saving people's lives, that are doing things from a mission-centered perspective, and that are just absolutely crushed with all of these audits. They're absolutely crushed with all of this unnecessary paperwork.
00:10:52
Speaker
So how do we basically remove these types of administrative things from these providers so that they can basically do the work, they can treat the person and not treat the paperwork? I think that's a really important thing for me to think about because if I'm going to spend a dollar on health care in the primary care setting, let's say I spend 10 cents on the administrative stuff.
00:11:13
Speaker
In the substance use disorder space, it's not 10 cents. It's not 20 cents. It's much, much more. And it's more not because it requires us do extra work, because it has more stigma. And that's a really important thing that I want everybody to understand. It's it's expensive, it's unnecessary, and it's totally redundant.
00:11:32
Speaker
I mean, government. Who do you think about that? Who do you think about that? But yeah, no, that's definitely a thing. Now, normally when I talk to substance use, I typically stay to that. But, you know, we are obviously the National Behavioral Health Association. Yeah. You mentioned behavioral health. Let's talk a little bit of kind of like the intersection of substance use and behavioral health and how that affects what you do.
00:11:54
Speaker
I don't know if you did this right or if you did this on purpose, but that actually frees me up to the fragmentation sort of barriers thing that we were talking about a second ago. So so thank you for that. We have a really exciting time happening right now because there's a lot of attention on what we're doing from a national perspective because of homelessness and because of the fentanyl crisis.
00:12:20
Speaker
Our president has done things like named fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction. So a lot of people that are you know that wouldn't normally understand that that product, that substance, they now understand that it's poisoning our drug supply. right It's also interesting in California because a lot of people, they say behavioral health, but they really just mean mental health. The other part, the other barrier, the other fragmentation, the other sort of dynamic that we're struggling with is the substance use disorder space hasn't had as much traction or forward momentum as mental health. And so if we start to bring in
00:13:00
Speaker
mental health into the substance use disorder space and call it behavioral health and start mixing and intermingling funding. The mental health community is much more advanced and much more professionalized around applying for grants, standing up programs. And so now, you know we're really sort of competing with our own to figure out who's going to get the contract. who's going to be able to provide these services.
Integration of Mental Health and Substance Use Services
00:13:23
Speaker
So I think one of the things that we really have to figure out right now is, you know if we do want to fully and meaningfully integrate behavioral health, how do we essentially allow substance use disorder providers to catch up to what mental health providers have been doing for the past couple of decades? right So there's that within the provider perspective.
00:13:43
Speaker
We have right now in California a lot of really great leaders. right One of the leaders that I have as a colleague, which I'm so grateful to have, is Gary Tsai from LA County Department of Public Health. And he is doing a lot of amazing work around the professionalization of staff.
00:14:00
Speaker
right We have these changemakers that are essentially saying, this is what our current system is. And I want to get us to over there along the horizon. And how are we going to create resources? How are we going to create funding? How are we going to make sure that our employees have the resources and the training they need to further professionalize the work that we're doing? In California, we're now doing things like enhanced case management where we're contracting with health plans. And health plans are accustomed to contracting with providers who have a certain level of education and training. So how are substance use disorder providers going to act more medical? How are we going to get our staff to have more medical training? That that crosswalk is is sort of trying to happen right now. And we're doing it.
00:14:48
Speaker
And we're going to get there. It's just a lot of work. It's a heavy lift, as some people would say. So I'm just really grateful that we have these individuals. And it's not just me. It's all of these people in the state that are like, no, we want something better and we demand something better.
00:15:02
Speaker
That is a great plan. Some of the things that was on your bio that I didn't mention is that you had served on the Sacramento LGBT Humanity Center and you are married to Mark Quinspern. So obviously, you know, LGBT issues are important to you. My wife works at the LA LGBT Center. And so I know that there's been a lot of stress and a lot of issues come around. Talk a little bit about kind of that aspect of your job and and how you fit that into it.
00:15:28
Speaker
Yeah, I want to call out that the work that I do and I am a gay man married to Mark. And I believe that one of the most important decisions you make in your entire life is who you share it with.
00:15:44
Speaker
When I think about you know the person I'm married to, I'm so grateful to Mark and I'm so grateful for the support that he gives me. But also, he pushes me in a really, really amazing way. And I just i want to say that that's part of my story. But it's also so deeply who I am. I'm also a gay Jewish man. And i am the board chair of the Jewish Federation of the Sacramento region. And that plays a factor into what I do.
00:16:08
Speaker
i am a white man. And I'm also in some ways a double minority. right So I represent as somebody that has a tremendous amount of privilege, but it's flavored with me feeling sometimes very, very, very other.
00:16:22
Speaker
Part of the work that I try to do is essentially create space for people who need to have their voices heard and just get out of their way. Which goes a little bit into what we were talking about with the larger consumer movement.
00:16:36
Speaker
The other part that I'm really trying to figure out, I don't know if any of your listeners are out there and they want to connect with me and we can sort of troubleshoot this. How do we successfully create space for individuals who have lived experience that needs to be appreciated from a cultural perspective without tokenizing and and resourcing them so that they can have their voice be heard in an appropriate way? Every industry is shifting. We have the people that have done the hard work to get us to where we're at.
00:17:04
Speaker
And then we have these new emerging leaders. you know I'm thinking about like these individuals that just that are doing that are thinking about things in a different way. And so how do we like really how do we really merge that? That's how it plays in. It's like, how do we create space for these people so that they feel like they can bring their the things that make them who they are to this space?
00:17:24
Speaker
And how do we merge that in a significant way so that it's meaningful? Also, at the same time, we should have done this 10 years ago. and And so there's that sense of like, how do we do it from a change perspective and, you know, slow and modified and structurally safe. But then also like, come on guys, we should have done this a long time ago. Let's keep up.
00:17:45
Speaker
We already talked about stigma a bit, but what would you say is the biggest change you've seen since you started working in terms of the industry? Let's see here. When I started this work, I thought that the biggest barrier was funding.
00:18:00
Speaker
And the truth is that it's actually not funding. It's something that is far more upstream and it's legitimacy. A lot of individuals who have a substance use disorder struggle with being, struggle with it being respected as a medical issue, as a medical disorder, as something that is treatable with medication.
00:18:24
Speaker
i constantly have to fight, you know, professionally. with people who say things like, well, they need to hit their rock bottom or this bootstrappy stuff that it's like if somebody had enough willpower, they could just sort of dig themselves out of the depths of their disease. That's not the way it works, people. And I think half of that is education. And half of that is just creating this larger space where what we do is a legitimate medical service. One of the things that we're working on right now is just people's ability to have access to medication-assisted treatment. There are medications out there that are not just you know Narcan and Naloxone that save people's lives by allowing them to live with a substance use disorder and treat it with medication and that wasn't available to us you know decades and decades and decades ago. So there's a little bit around medication-assisted treatment, legitimacy.
00:19:18
Speaker
There's also a little bit around you know the legitimacy of the work we're doing, which I mentioned a few moments ago, professionalizing our workforce. And I think there's a lot of education that we really need to do. We have a lot of partners on this. And I think that i think that they're doing the work at the local level.
00:19:36
Speaker
But the other part, I think, is helping individuals who are doing the good work at their programs, lift it up as a best practice so that we can share it with the state. If you don't tell people about it, you don't get credit for the good work. And so many providers out there like Tarzana and HealthRight and others,
00:19:55
Speaker
They're just doing the work and they're not telling people. So that's part of that's part of one of the biggest shifts is that it's no longer good enough just to do the work. And now you have to do the work and you have to have this whole social media presence and relationships with your elected officials because those who are in the Capitol are fighting for funding.
00:20:10
Speaker
Yeah. but You got to have your own brand. as Unfortunately, everybody has to have their own brand. as they like cause That's right. Now, ah you know, the industry is obviously changing sometimes on an hourly basis and nowadays. What's going on in the world? Bag fans the cuts. Exactly. Is there any way you can kind of give me an idea of where you think the industry is going to be going in the next few years? Or is it kind of just, you know, we're playing it by ear? Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah I think that we're losing hope.
00:20:40
Speaker
but Because there are so many things that are happening. right I was talking to somebody a few days ago and they were saying, we live in unprecedented times and I'm exhausted because of it. So I know that things will continue to improve because we have people that will make things improve.
00:21:00
Speaker
like Like you, Angie, and other community leaders, both at the California you know other state perspective. So I think that's that's really important. In California,
00:21:12
Speaker
We are significantly investing on the consumer voice. I would be happy to share more with you later on But CADP is in the process right now of standing up an entirely separate nonprofit called Substance Use Disorder Voices for Change that will be a completely consumer focused association.
00:21:34
Speaker
So keep an eye out for that. We are going to have in California consumers that are going to be at the testimony table at their local boards of supervisors and at the California state legislature that are going to be educating members, not lobbying, but educating members on their experience on the services that they feel like they need to they need to sort of insert in the middle of these policy conversations. We also are putting together this entire leadership academy for these consumers to make sure that when a board or commission or the governor says, i want a consumer on the Proposition 1 Commission,
00:22:12
Speaker
There's a consumer that's ready that is trained on how to how to run a board meeting or how to vote or how to do research before you vote on
CADPE's Nonprofit Initiative and Leadership Philosophy
00:22:20
Speaker
something. So I really want to say that that's something that we're contributing to the system that the CADP board and the CADP staff and the executive committee have said, no, we can do better and we will make significant time and money investments in this. We're doing that in partnership with the Department of Healthcare care Services. And it's a super exciting project.
00:22:39
Speaker
Secondarily, you know more around the professionalization of the work that we're doing. So what does that look like? I think health plans are going to be contracting with providers and the state is making a significant investment into the continuum of care.
00:22:57
Speaker
It is no longer enough to just provide this one service and think that you're going to be able to continue to do business in that way. You are going to have to start providing a continuum of care.
00:23:09
Speaker
And that's going to have to include substance use disorder services for people who aren't currently doing it. So I think that the reimbursement models are going to start to shift. I think that the licensing is going to start to shift to accommodate these types of things. In California, we have like crisis services, physical crisis services, but we also have things like 988 from a national perspective.
00:23:29
Speaker
So individuals who are on the streets or in the middle of a chaotic event, whether that's a chaotic drug use event or in the middle of a mental health event, you know there's crisis services that will come and stabilize them and help sort of transition them to care. like That's really exciting.
00:23:44
Speaker
Where are they going to go? Right? Emergency departments are not the best place for people who are having these intrusive thoughts. And so we're partnering with the hospitals. We're partnering with primary care doctors to make sure that if anybody is being screened for these types of chaotic events, that we could sort of bring them into care to do that early diagnosis and that early intervention earlier. we know Like I said, we're partnering with the hospitals to essentially say,
00:24:10
Speaker
How can we, when someone is brought into care through crisis response, how can we make sure that they go to a sobering center like Janus of Santa Cruz? They're doing some amazing work around sobering centers and emergency department diversions. I think there's going to be a lot of there's goingnna be a lot of transformation in this space of just like the dignity of people with substance use disorder and the funding. This may sound like overly highly technical, but unfortunately, this is how it works. but yes And yeah, you've mentioned leadership a couple of times and we kind of broached this already, but I'm going to give you a softball question. What makes a good leader?
00:24:48
Speaker
In your opinion, what makes a good leader? I think I said it earlier. It's just hiring the right people and getting out of their way. It's keeping in touch with your board and the community and having a measured approach to progress.
00:25:03
Speaker
It takes a lot of money to look this cheap. That's a quote that Dolly Parton said a long time ago. right it's ah It's a really important thing that I think about. And the reason that it applies to what I do is it essentially says, in order for me to get here, you have to be very, very prepared.
00:25:19
Speaker
And so you know it may just look like you know people can show up and talk off cuffs and just sort of like it seems effortless, but it really is not. so Actual leaders make it look easy, but it takes a tremendous amount of preparation to do that.
00:25:33
Speaker
The other part that I just i really feel strongly about and my grandma Pat used to say this, what's right is right. yeah In my life, I have been in the thick of a lot of political projects. And the one thing that I think leaders really have to keep in mind, they have to be keeping as their true North Star is what's right is right.
00:25:55
Speaker
You can't listen to what people say and adopt that because it's the easy decision. Sometimes you're going to have to make hard decisions and that's literally part of your job description. So don't lose track of that.
00:26:05
Speaker
e Yeah. Part of my background for some people I think already know this is I spent 15 years or so volunteering with community theater. yeah I stage manager several times and that's very much a job of if you do your job well, no one knows you exist kind of thing. So I definitely understand that that idea.
00:26:24
Speaker
Let's talk a little bit about your work with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and Criminal Justice California Juvenile Justice Compendium. How does that fit into what you've been doing? Yeah, one of the opportunities that we have for individuals who are incarcerated are two things.
00:26:42
Speaker
Reentry services and the medication and services that they have access to. Right. So a lot of the providers that Cadp represent think about what it's like for that individual to reenter into the community months.
00:26:57
Speaker
years before that person actually is starting to reenter. One of the things that Department Health Care Services and Tyler Sadwith at DHCS is working on and has given us as a resource.
00:27:08
Speaker
And you know, I want to say something before I continue to go. It sounds like I'm name dropping, but part of what I'm doing is appreciating what people in this space are creating, like the tools. I think another aspect of being a good leader is just understanding that like you're a combination of all of this great work that your community has done. so I'm not a name dropper. I do it generally speaking because I really feel like people deserve respect in this space.
00:27:35
Speaker
That being said, we have programs through our waivers that will allow providers to go into correctional facilities 90 days ahead of that person reentering. home, which is like really exciting. Instead of just saying to somebody... Because it's a very Hollywood moment where someone... you know The prison gates open up and they're holding a brown paper bag and they sort of like you know they walk out of those front gates and there's a car waiting for them. like That's Hollywood. That's not really the way that it works.
00:27:59
Speaker
So the way that it works in California is that providers actually are engaging with people that are you know going to re-enter into society 90 days ahead of time, making sure they have ah a medical home, they have a primary care physician that's helping them, making sure they have a program that they can go to, making sure they have medication, making sure they're connected with family and those kinds of things.
00:28:19
Speaker
So the work that we're doing with CDCR is a bit of a push and a pull because it's new. It's exciting. California is leading the way on these spaces. But at the other point, it's a little frightening because everyone's watching what we're doing.
00:28:33
Speaker
We're the fourth largest economy in the world. and Everybody likes to think that, you know, nobody's really watching, but other states are looking at California and saying, well, if they're going to experiment with it and they're going to do it, then maybe other states can do it too.
00:28:47
Speaker
in If you could travel back in time to when you were first starting, what would be some of the advice you would give yourself? What are some of like the biggest lessons you've learned? Don't be a footnote in someone else's plan.
00:28:59
Speaker
If you feel strongly about something, you're the one that needs to really take charge on it. I think I mentioned it a moment ago, what's right is right. My grandma Pat will continue to be in my head and i will think about when I'm in ah the middle of a situation and i have two decisions. And one is the hard decision and one is the right decision. like you have to keep that You have to keep that centered.
00:29:22
Speaker
There's also this old Willie Nelson song, Don't Let the Old Man in yeahp And i think about that from like my health's perspective. But I also think about that from like a professional perspective. Just because it's worked for the last 10 years doesn't mean that it's going to serve you going forward. right You have to let go of the monkey bar behind you in order to get to the next monkey bar in front of you. like This is kindergarten 101. And so don't let what has worked in the past sort of like stop you from moving forward.
00:29:52
Speaker
There's something that I think about, and I wish somebody would have told me this when I first started around harm reduction, because I thought harm reduction was just about meeting people where they were at.
Personal Reflections and Future Policy Engagement
00:30:02
Speaker
But what i realized for myself, the transformative moment was when someone is drowning, that's not the time to teach them to swim.
00:30:11
Speaker
When someone is in the middle of a chaotic event, whether that be mental health or substance use disorder, or any behavioral health event, that's not the time to teach them to swim. It's the time to essentially resource them with things that they need to stabilize. And we can talk about all of the you know the harm reduction tactics and techniques later on. But when someone is drowning, that's not the time to teach them to swim. I recently was diagnosed about a year ago with colon cancer.
00:30:38
Speaker
And so one of the things that I'm still in my journey of recovery and I've had my surgery and I'm here today and super excited about the work I'm doing. So everything is going to be fine. But the one thing that I learned that you can't tell anybody, but I learned it on my own was second chances saved my life and I work to make sure others get theirs.
00:30:58
Speaker
A mixture of those things I really wish yeah I could sort of hand my prior self. The one thing I wish I would have... least A lot of bad bosses make you a good boss.
00:31:09
Speaker
So if you're in the middle of your journey around whether it be substance use disorder or mental health or gosh, even banking or social work or whatever you're doing, there's always something to learn around what you're experiencing.
00:31:22
Speaker
Exactly. yeah Back to the whole um I've been in L.A. for about 10 years now, a little over that. I've worked with three startups and boy, how do you do they not know how manage in startups? Yes. Well, it's interesting. It's interesting you say that because I have a good friend of mine, David Begnaud, and we talk... We're in two totally different spaces. He is wildly successful and celebrated within the TV news space. In fact, he has this great new podcast called The Do Good Crew. And I'll get into that a little bit later on because it's like my little dose of hope and excitement. And one of the things... Because I really struggle with like how to navigate staffing issues and how to navigate just personalities and those kinds of things. And one of the things that he said a long time ago was, find somebody who shares your rhythm.
00:32:11
Speaker
And it's such a beautiful thing if you think about it, because it doesn't mean that you're wrong and I'm right. It means that we just got to find people that we have these commonalities with. And then once you get that rhythm, once we're all rowing in the same direction, we have nothing but opportunity in front of us.
00:32:27
Speaker
There was a sitcom in the 90s, Aaron Sorkin, Sports Night. I don't know if you're familiar with it. I had a great piece of advice for leadership. If you're dumb, surround yourself by smart people. If you're smart, surround yourself by smart people who disagree with you.
00:32:41
Speaker
Oh, confirmation bias. That's great. Exactly. And I continually try and do that whenever I'm in a management position. You had brought up harm reduction. Let's talk a little bit more. You say you want to talk a little bit more about that. What are some of the biggest things that you feel like are needed in that space?
00:32:59
Speaker
I think that there are, just like everything in life, different opportunities for different people at different stages of their recovery. So when we have the larger conversation around harm reduction, a lot of people think that we just want to legalize drugs. And I'm using really general terms here because you know this is their this is their language, not mine. They're thinking, we just want to legalize drugs and let everybody do whatever they want.
00:33:23
Speaker
That's actually not harm reduction. So there's a huge education space you know that we need to be having around those talking points, number one. Number two, harm reduction is working in other countries.
00:33:35
Speaker
It has been working. It's not experimental. So there's models that we really could use to think about how can we safely do this to essentially keep people alive one more day to offer them robust community services.
00:33:48
Speaker
Number two. Number three, and I think this is the really important part, is funding. We need individuals who are in places of leadership to think about ways that we can support this work through funding it. Because a lot of the work that is being done right now is being done at the national level in in different states is being done by private foundations.
00:34:11
Speaker
So how can we once again professionalize? How can we include this as part of our continuum of care in a safe way that is supported by national models that is using best practices, but also keeping people safe with the goal of keeping people alive?
00:34:25
Speaker
That is a great thing. Now, one of the things I like to ask people in there, what is your least favorite or most difficult part of your job? Being a public spokesperson. I don't like this. I think you're amazing. Well, i because I I'm super passionate about it. Right.
00:34:43
Speaker
it's really hard for me to feel like people care what I think because I know that everything... And this gets back to why I'm always... I'm not name dropping. I'm just sort of like using what other people have taught me.
00:34:54
Speaker
because I feel like it's not my own. I feel like we have this gigantic community. And they're doing all of these really amazing things. And so the way that i sort of cope with it is I try to sort of crowdsource all of these great comments and this great advice and say, well, I'm just promoting what somebody else has said over here. That's the part that I don't like about it the most. But you know I do it and I'm learning to enjoy it. When I meet people like you, this feels like a conversation. So I actually enjoy things like this. But talking to the press, it's hard to navigate and I have to represent a certain talking point. And that's hard. The most exciting part
00:35:32
Speaker
That was going to be my next question. Is really being able to step back with my peers and colleagues and think about what the system could look like and having and in that.
00:35:45
Speaker
We talked a little bit about the funding mechanisms. We talked a little bit about, you know, sort of these policy things. One of the things that we're doing right now is engaging with the next group of candidates for governor.
00:35:59
Speaker
So we have an amazing governor right now. Governor Gavin Newsom has invested more than anybody else in behavioral health and substance use disorders. We you know Nobody's right all the time and we don't necessarily get it perfect. But he has invested through B-CHIP funding and through... I won't go through the whole list. But he has invested significant money into our services. He could do more.
00:36:23
Speaker
That's my job to push the state on doing that. But from my opinion, I feel like he's he's invested significant amount of time and effort into this. but he's gonna be gone.
00:36:34
Speaker
And so what are we doing right now to think about the long-term strategy of what it's gonna be like to engage with a new governor? What are we gonna think about when it comes to, what are we doing to engage with the next group of assembly members or senators? Do we want them to be walking into the Capitol under the dome of the rotunda, and then we're shaking their hand and saying, hi, we're the providers that do substance use disorder. Or are we able right now to get in front of them and say, we're going to help you put together your policy platforms.
00:37:05
Speaker
We're going to help you develop your thoughts and experiences experiences around substance use disorder treatment. We're going to get you tours of these really amazing providers. We're going to take you to places like Skid Row and talk about how we're helping people treat their medical conditions when they're living in a tent. We need to be having these conversations right now. So like that's the most important part. And the most inspiring part for me is the true sort of pie chart of what I talked about a moment ago around like being an actual amazing leader.
00:37:34
Speaker
that's really important to saying, okay, I know this is the issue we have right now. And the short term goals are to solve these two or three issues today and this week. But the long term goals, we need to be doing that too. And that's, that's really exciting for me.
00:37:47
Speaker
Now we're getting close to the end of the episode. Unfortunately, I am enjoying talking to you on my on the ball today. Let's talk a little bit about recovery capital and what that means to you and your job.
00:38:00
Speaker
Yeah, I think that when we're approaching people from a whole person approach, there's four main buckets when I think about recovery capital. And so that's obviously like personal, family, social, cultural, and community.
00:38:13
Speaker
The way that we think about, or I think about, how this all should work is these each one of these items really should be supporting each other. So like personal is like health, skills, financial, self-esteem, family is intimate relationships. When we think about community, those items really should help support individuals through the other spaces. So activism, I think, is really key when it comes to self-esteem. The peer-led movement, it really is around the you know do one, teach one mantra that really is around teaching people skills, which leads into the personal recovery capital space. Peer employment is something
00:38:52
Speaker
that we all need to be better about. Like I said earlier, the person closest to the problem is closest to the solution. i also think that nothing about us without a space is really important here. Additionally, individuals who have lived experience need to be able to pay rent and they need to be able to feed their families. And one of the keys to that is professionalizing individuals who who have lived experience in spaces and also career laddering. So if you think about an individual that has a chaotic event, finds himself in recovery, and eventually works in the behavioral health space, how are we going to create an opportunity for individuals that
00:39:37
Speaker
They can be a peer support specialist that can move into a social worker, an LCSW, maybe into an MFT. And so we need to be we need to be really thoughtful around that. And we talked a moment ago about just like the full spectrum of services for providers. But I think a full spectrum of services from the self-esteem perspective with people who are have lived experience or receiving services with SUD, they want that so they don't have to basically eject out of their own community to be able to go receive services someplace. So if somebody is trying to receive inpatient help or a substance use disorder, whether that be alcohol use disorder, or opioid use disorder, they should be able to go into a facility, they should able partner with that facility to be able to receive all the services they need without having to go to this program, that program, going to the county, across county lines. And so I think the full spectrum of services is is really important here. The reason that I'm saying all of these really important details is not because you know is not because it's unnecessary detail for recovery capital. It's because the system really needs to be matching the strengths from the strength-based approach for the individuals.
00:40:45
Speaker
Yeah, that definitely makes sense. You know, our audience is kind of wide ranging, but I always like to ask what kind of resources you use on a regular basis to kind of keep updated with what's going on in the industry, how you stay on top of everything. You mentioned the Do Good Crew podcast. Did I get that right?
00:41:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's dogoodcrew.com, I think. Okay. um What other resources do you use to kind of keep updated with what's going on? Yeah, I'm involved in a lot of local groups. We belong to a larger national association called TCA or Treatment Centers of America. If you get on their website, they will be happy to share with you resources when it comes to like the larger national perspective. They have newsletters that you can keep in touch on what's happening. from a substance use disorder perspective at the national level. you know I have an amazing staff that quite frankly put out significant SUD focused updates. So if you go to cadp.org, you will be able to keep in touch on some of the work that we're doing. And that could be in-person events where the department and elected officials are coming and talking to people about SUD focused issues. That could be newsletters. We also have social media channels that you can keep in touch with. It's just cadby at whether that be Instagram or Facebook or whatever. I think LinkedIn is a tremendous resource.
00:42:04
Speaker
I'm on LinkedIn. If any of your listeners are on LinkedIn, let's connect. If you have topics you want to discuss, that's super, super, super important. Like I said a moment ago, you know the Do Good Crew is something that I feel really strongly about giving me hope in a meaningful way.
00:42:20
Speaker
And we need we need more of that right now. With everything that's going on, we actually really just need more of that right now. And so those are a couple of resources. Also, don't forget sudvoices.org. That's something that will help people keep in touch with the larger consumer movement in California. But nothing nothing substitutes just conversations like this.
00:42:41
Speaker
You've already mentioned this a little bit, but for those who may not be reading the show notes or may not be seeing this online, how can people get a hold of you? Please fill websites. Yeah, But I'm also on LinkedIn as Rob Lane, R-O-B-B-L-A-Y-N-E.
00:43:02
Speaker
Okay, to the last question, and it's kind of a reiteration of my first question, but what I like to do is gut reaction, no preparation, no thought. Why do you do what you do?
00:43:13
Speaker
I just keep returning to the idea of lifting up community voices, helping people get the services they need to keep them alive if they're in the middle of a chaotic event, and promoting the work of the people that are saving lives.
00:43:31
Speaker
I shared a moment ago about it's not just enough anymore to do the good work. You have to have people out there telling individuals, telling elected officials, telling state leaders, talking to the news about the work that we're doing.
00:43:46
Speaker
I feel like that's the part that gets me going. in the morning. and you know I'm just so grateful for our board Cadby. I'm grateful for the staff at Cadby. I'm grateful for our state partners. It's been a wonderful experience. And I'm just really looking forward to seeing what we can do over the next few years.
00:44:02
Speaker
You've been listening to Destination Change. Our guest today was Rob Lane. Thank you for being here. Our theme song is Sun Nation by Kitsa and used via Creative Commons license by the Free Music Archive. Please consider rating and reviewing the podcast on Apple Podcasts so we can get more listeners.
00:44:17
Speaker
In the meantime, you can always see more about the podcast, including show notes and where else to listen, on our website, www.nbhap.org. If you have questions for the podcast, please email us at info at nbhap.org.
00:44:30
Speaker
Thanks for listening.