August 31, 2017

Dear Member of the Recovery Workforce Community,

There has been a flurry of inaccurate, incomplete and potentially inflammatory information circulating over the past few days about the status of our association, foundation and our highly valued practitioner credentials. As chair of the PRA board of directors, I want to be transparent in the efforts we have made to ensure our organization remains both relevant and sustainable.

For each of the past three years, PRA and PRF have operated at a net loss, having invested in increasing the value of key programs, including credentialing, trainings and our Annual Recovery Workforce Summit. 

By delivering this more robust service array, leadership’s expectation was a rate of overall economic growth that would offset higher staffing and program expenses.  Unfortunately, this expected growth has not materialized so in order to protect the services we deem essential to our mission, we need to significantly reduce non-essential expenses.  This is probably an exercise virtually all of our member organizations have had to confront and as stewards of the PRA and Foundation mission, we have an obligation to ensure we are structurally “rightsized”. 

The PRA and PRF Board and Executive Committees, together with the staff, have invested enormous time and strategic attention reviewing options, including contemplating a significant staff restructuring a year ago.  The decision at that time was not to make material staffing changes, but instead to focus even more attention on improving economic results of key programs. 

Now a year later, despite the fact that we are delivering more and better programs and services than ever before, the difficult reality we must confront is that our recovery workforce is itself under economic stress and, at least for now, simply cannot afford to invest more heavily in PRA.

As a result, we now have reached the difficult and painful decision to take significant steps to reduce our own costs by trimming staff resources and non-essential program costs.  We’ll focus our remaining staff resources on delivering on our critical functions, including our all-important credentialing program, the Annual Recovery Workforce Summit and the training functions that we know are so highly valued by our organizational and individual members.  This will also increase our reliance on our volunteer leaders for strategic focus and public policy representation.

The practical result is that the PRA and Foundation leadership has eliminated two senior staff positions, while structuring remaining staff to continue to provide direct service to members of our community.  As you may know, we have worked for years with an association management company (MCI USA) which serves as our staffing and infrastructure backbone.  They have been nothing short of fully supportive of these difficult decisions and are working directly with those impacted professionals to help them find their next opportunities for professional success.  They are also providing wage and benefits support to well beyond the conclusion of their service to PRA and the Foundation, costs for which PRA and the Foundation do not have to bear.  We recognize and appreciate MCI USA’s treatment of those who have served PRA and the Foundation so diligently.

Our short-term focus is on cost reduction, operational integrity and critical service delivery with a mid- and longer-term focus on economic stability.  We have significant debt that must be retired and are taking the necessary steps, as good stewards of the organization, to do just that. 

PRA/PRF has had to make difficult choices to ensure continued delivery of key programs – our prestigious credentials, our excellent education programming offered both virtually and face-to-face, as well as our member services.  These programs are central to the “Why” of PRA and the Foundation and the leadership is committed to their current and future success. 

Doubtless, this is a major disappointment to all of us who have forged deep emotional ties to members of our staff. It is important to note that, overall we will continue to be staffed by a team of staff professionals who have served the organization previously, ensuring continuity.

When faced with challenge, we as a community and as a workforce need to come together, to unify in common cause.  While there are those who will undoubtedly try and leverage these necessary actions as a clarion call for division and disruption, we need to ensure that we keep our core mission as our top priority, to serve and represent the Recovery Workforce.  Let’s ensure that in the process of this unwanted but absolutely essential action that we don’t lose our way.

Sincerely,

Roy Starks, MA

Chair, Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association

Director of Rehabilitation Services & Reaching Recovery, Mental Health Center of Denver, Denver, CO