CELEBRATING THE WORK OF JAMES BUTLER IN METAMORPHOSIS IN BLACK WITH REP. ANTONIO CABRAL WITH MEMERS, STAFF, FRIENDS AND OTHER CIIVIC INFLUENCERS

1. Russell D. Pierce
Director Office of Recovery and Empowerment
Remarks and Perspective
State House Forum Event
November 20, 2014
THROUGH ALL THE SORROW OF THE SORROW
SONGS THERE BREATHES A HOPE—A FAITH IN THE
ULTIMATE JUSTICE OF THINGS
W.E. B. Du Bois
Which reminds me necessarily as it di d our
ancestors that though we take time to celebrate in
part on this day, we do not, dare not, deign not,
avert our eyes, our attention to troubles here. And

2. there are challenges here—lifespan disparity in
health outcomes and death for those in a
behavioral system owing largely to preventable and
modifiable behaviors, chief of which is smoking,
heart disease and obesity, made more complicated
by mental health and substance use issues.
But we carry on, knowing that as reformers in this
Commonwealth understood, that there can be
really no progress without hope, and no real hope
without progress. But when progress and hope are
joined together then that bodes well for the
entirety of the community. So believed the
Commonwealth’s Dorothea Dix and one of my
favorite historical shapers of change, Frederick
Douglass—
Reformers of a certain age were not always blessed
with dollars, but they did have ideas—and this is

3. what gives me great joy as a Director in the
Commonwealth. I see the power of biography,
truth telling and the strength of collective eperiene
allows as managers to access program with useful
data information
Now we have fancy word for this type of
knowledge, wisdom and information—and it is
‘data analytics’. But here is something I want us all
to carefully consider as we look at data and hear
compelling stories, as the one presented by Mr.
Butler.
According to Bob Damon, Executive Chairman of
North America Korn/Ferrry , managers and
government officials must know when to turn off
the data spigot; he notes correctly that data means
little if it does not advance relationship, decision-
making and both judgment and execution which

4. may be oftentimes associated with experience.
These qualities are essential for the making of
excellent leaders. I am convinced that narratives
like those that predominated a century ago, even
those by Mandela, King, Douglass, Stowe, Ellison
and of course the writings like Death of a
Salesman,Antigone and Notes from the
Underground, are all not great forms of literature,
they continue to spur ideas in asserting truth
against power, lesding to democratic reforms,
innovations in design of whole societies including
both policy, legislation and how people are treated
among courts of law, including our own U.S,
Supreme writing in Olmstead and recognizing the
continuing barriers to community integration based
on misperception, bias and prejudices that so
affected every aspect of public life, concluded in its
Decision that such separation was no longer
routinely acceptable, and that persons particularly
be in the least segregated environment as possible,

5. while acknowledging financial burdens on the
States.
It is a blessing to know that the Commonwealth is
walking in the spirit of this landmark decision
It is an honor and a privilege to be here in this, The
People’s House, to discuss an issue all of us in the
mental health community and beyond care about,
well-being, as one – in--four Americans are beset
with these challenges in any given year. We know
also that there is tremendous unmet need as
persons, particularly those who are young and
adrift, and those on the margins of our society,
usually isolated in community life have limited
access to quality care that is both specific to their
needs including language and culture.
It is doubly an honor to share this stage with our
special guests and to witness anew their
unwavering commitment to a more civil and just

6. Commonwealth. Gov. Patrick, Gov-Elect Baker and
others, I am thrilled to celebrate with you on behalf
of DMH and the Office of Recovery and
Empowerment our shared vision for a recovery-
focused and person centered approach to care,
including trauma informed approaches to crisis
among, families and in communities.
But I have long recognized that we treat health not
only with what amounts to a fixation on reducing
risk factors and preventive factors by an almost
exclusive orientation on symptom abatement or
even case management—many of us in systems of
care, do not feel that we are in fact ‘cases’ to be
managed, nor just an aggrieved interest. Rather we
believe that we are full human beings—and that
health in any real sense means caring for, if you will
the whole person—his environment, his community
that may give him definition, strength and history,
as well as attending to his economic and spiritual

7. needs. In this way we really begin to address health
holistically, as a matter that connects the mind,
heart, soul and spirit. Understanding this today, we
know that Descartes was only partially correct or
totally wrong: while the mind is the center of
thought, thought alone does not make the whole of
the person—the person is because he ‘belongs’ to
something, much like our Recovery Learning
Communities, where individuals can freely associate
with ‘others who have bee there’ in hospitals or
emergency rooms and provide thus solace, belief,
and model upward behaviors that suggest recovery
is within reach.
Those of who embrace a recovery framework,
believe essentially in voluntariness, mutuality,
community, connected, relatedness and hope, but
recovery without cash is empty to many of us—so
we are designing as innovators strategies not at
traditional employment options, as those with

8. these conditions account for a huge users of social
security benefits. I believe the near 80 per cent
unemployment rate makes a lot of noise as a
statistical matter, as people want income, certainly
not poverty, we just need to find some creative
ideas that will build up our income-generation
momentum and idea and idea innovation on
business itself as these are not mere words, but
suggest a change in how persons ‘differently abled’
view work and how excellent organizations are
going to have find ways to develop these potential
labor pool in the years to come, as I am convinced
that those of us who find ourselves temporarily
abled, now will want to work for organizations
where we are celebrate, and where our values, like
peer support and mutuality are wrapped around
the business model of the organization or entity.
This to me is the new accommodation, the new
diversity—as talent is moveable an skills, like

9. attention to detail, the value of lived experience
and the power to engage with diverse stakeholders
across multiple platforms, all skills valued in our
peer roles at the ground and executive level, will
have increased significance going forward.
I think DMH as a system recognizes and I am sure
that it is why in substantial part I am still here, with
my rants and all. To know your value, is to
understand not boastfully, that you are somebody,
have arrived and can most of contribute given the
totality of your experience, giving you and the
organization vibrancy, energy and perspective so
necessary for designing policies that are fitted to
the needs of the person and the payors and citizens
who develop budgets.
At this gathering I would like to say though that I am
hopeful about our progress but ever mindful that

10. we have quite a distance to travel, for preparing this
generation and the next for better health care
outcomes will be a daunting task as budgets are
stretched and communities distressed by trauma,
unemployment and other factors that dispose a
people of hope—the wellspring of opportunity
realized in community life. The challenges ae great
in terms of housing and economic supports that will
support individuals in their recovery and self-
defined path of growth either through peer support
which my Office supports with the backing of this
Commonwealth and the Department and
Commissioner Fowler.
As recovery champions we believe and profess
aloud that life is one of ‘infinite possibilities’—one
in which we are unbounded by set limitations, even
due to illness or popular prejudices. We know that
the human mind, can stretch and that the human
being is a part of ‘infinite experience’ Lucky for

11. many of us we let go of the notion when diagnosed
perhaps that: ‘we were ot good enough’; ‘would be
forever in care’; ‘always reliant on programs,
caregivers and supportive services’ or that even
‘your life will never be the same’.
But we listened to the voice within us.
And that voice said: Well, as if in church, “Yes, I
can”
And yes we have, have, overcome, significant
adversity, giving us reason as the singer Tracy
Chapman sings, ‘a reason to stay here.’ We know as
recovery champions, words and meaning matter,
but perhaps just as importantly, we understand that
actions in community life are shaped by this
language and part of role if we assume it, is to
diplomatically challenge the practice that would

12. consign either ourselves or someone else to a
devalued social status
But it was my black history teacher Ms. Johnson and
a community of folks who invested in me as a
child—telling before I was determined to be grand,
and grandiose by those who projected their
limitations onto me, that yes I was a dreamer, today
they would use the language of ‘innovator’ or
change agent or ‘visionary’. But because I was in a
traditional care unit, I even had a doctor tell me and
inquire if my sister if in fact I had a law degree let
alone having attended selective liberal arts school.
As if tht was not enough I would experience in care
settings the notions that I wasa acting too normal
and didn’t I know I was sick. And when I told the
nice appearing doctor that I was conversant in
common law and tht law school was indeed a part
of my background, he smiled, took more notes and
left the room.

13. This is when I started to remember my teachers in
grade school who had warned me that the ever-
present they would make matters worse for you
either because of prejudice or simple ignorance, but
as my older would; ‘that their baggage, and that’s
with them.’ Just remember that the women down
the street thought highly of you, that you are going
to be somebody.
We are making a difference through our
increasingly targeted messages around mental
health being essential and fundamental to overall
health, as the economic and social burdens of poor
mental health results in consequences that can not
only be life-disrupting, but also impair significant
relationships within families and the larger
community.

14. This Department is a champion and long before it
cane a trend0line—and peers have responded:
Yes, we can. We can do this
Indeed we have a message of active engagement in
the therapeutic milieu and our person-centered
approach to care, we are seeing that people with
the proper supports can reclaim their lives in
community by frank conversations pivotal to health
to include wellness coaches, better nutrition,
exercise and connectedness—all of which promote
integration consistent with evolving standards of
decency. There is now widespread recognition of
the value of these whole health strategies and an
emphasis on holistic approaches to the ecology of
care—and better still, satisfaction, which we now
measure, as providers increasingly understand that
there be no business as usual: income follows
necessarily outcomes.

15. But the scourge of prejudice and discrimination
continues apace and interferes with both the
delivery of services, as mental health care was once
delivered in such ‘controlling ways’ according to the
World Health Organization, and in many countries,
that is still the case, as peers or those of us in
recovery are routinely treated as ‘wards’ and
‘objects of care’ rather than as autonomous
individuals who strive as other—‘other’—citizens to
participate as citizens fully in community life. Is
there any wonder why people are not engaged in
care? But what better reason to support those of us
who have ‘been there’ as administrators, diectors,
managers, and one day, dare, I say, commissioners.
Yet, as with many other states Massachusetts is a
trend-setter in the development and cultivation of a
robust peer work force and one of my future efforts
is to expand on this practice, to message it to the

16. wider public for adoption, as I believe that the ‘lived
experience’ as a peer can translate over to almost
any environment that values communications,
skilled listening, intense negotiation, and
engagement with technology and diverse
organization.
One of the lessons that I learned while a Public
Health Advisor at the U.S. Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
with the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention
(CSAP), was that in order to create change, be it
substance use strategies or mental health which co-
occurs with it, you must have a message and that
message must resonate across all community
sectors to include business, faith forums, schools,
the arts and media. In other words there must be
multiple strategies over multiple sectors. Todays’s
gathering I suspect is a step in this direction and is
what the Office of Recovery and Empowerment is

17. attempting to do with an emphasis on targeted
outreach, community engagement and policy.
It is though the feeling—and feelings matters, of
‘otherness’ that separate us out from wise and
considered public policy, as a society though
evolving to recognize the gifts many of bring to
leadership, the arts, entertainment and academe,
the majority of persons with a psychiatric label, are
believed either not to be competent in directing
their own care, let alone designing systems that
provide this care. As the true Renaissance Woman,
Maya Angelou said: “I may not remember what you
said, or how you said it, but I will never forget how
you made me feel.” Indeed a sense of past wrongs
and continuing assaults, call forward our effort to
address still existent civil wrongs, in care settings, in
community life, where discrimination itself is an
insult, an assault on difference.

18. Those who are familiar with me and my work know
that I care a lot about how language is and has been
used to describe people, either those labeled with a
disability or those who did not have equal privilege.
Words do matter—and another reason why we
need to be careful in describing even those we are
allies with—and remember always that we are
working with people and not ‘for’ them, as the
latter is paternalistic and effectively disposes people
of their own efforts towards independence, self-
determination and empowerment, which is a
healthy respect for the choices made by people, not
just ceding someone the right to do something that
we personally prefer.
But we know that ‘care’ must begin with a hopeful
psychiatry and not a hope –sapping one, one that is
attuned to the strengths of the person and the
assets he or she has and the desired future one may
have across the lifespan. It is my contention here

19. that the only effective outcome that matters in the
last analysis are ones determined by the person and
we should support people in whatever way they
want to be engaged in either treatment or life in the
community, and not supplant them in their efforts,
if it is to be gainfully employed as a peer specialist
or a manager or director of a program, as is my
case.
But more significantly when we begin to look at
people through the lens of citizenship—as illness
will impact everyone, then our attitudes
fundamentally change, and we no longer look at
people as ‘others’ but as our neighbors, friends,
colleagues—and even leaders, those for whom
respect and honor is accorded, as it is today for Jim
Butler, because people, who are beset with
challenges, are deserving and demonstrate to us all
that hard work, redemption, style, grace and
comportment are worthy of our highest

20. consideration, as such persons have ‘value’ as
contributors even if they do not contribute because
of illness to the integrity of the public treasury; they
have as I have and others volunteer in community
lifr, on boards, neighborhood drop-in centers, and
otherwise law-abiding and this is valuable in my
estimation.
I am personally delighted to be here in the
Commonwealth at this time and bear witness to the
many stories of triumph in our peer community—
we are people who love, who demonstrate
compassion, highly skilled researchers; and if these
skill-sets are routinely recognized not only will wise
policy and judgment result, the whole of society will
have a different understanding that ‘recovery’—
generating to the highest possible potential in
community is both realizable, achievable and
sustainable. Today we stand here as the evidence
of this. We are the data, as we sometimes forget

21. that ‘data’ is a word picture and not just a table on
a flash-drive or projector screen.
As I so often say at DMH and in my public speaking,
a diagnosis is not a destination point or a terminal
malady. Rather it can signal an ‘awakening’ of sorts
as you take stock of what your passion is and how
you might make a difference with your struggles, as
struggles inform the narrative that it life. Indeed, I
can think of no one who has achieved anything
worth having without endurance, struggle, but at
the same time while these struggles may be life-
informing, perhaps it is best and wise not to
promote struggles of this sort through policy. There
is a better way for character development,
formation.
It is my fervent hope at DMH to enhance this
understanding that ‘data’ likewise must not lose the

22. human dimension, as I think legislators, want to
know the impact of dollars on real people, and data
gathering is only as useful as the story behind it.
And we have some wonderful stories—many of
which you have heard at our State House
Breakfasts.
My own story, like most Americans storie of uplift
has been marked by both triumph, success and
pain, and I have not yet written comprehensively
about all of these events, but suffice it to say ,I
marvel at those who creatively and boldly proclaim
their truths, because to make oneself this
vulnerable is indeed a courageous act, especially
when the community may despite all your
successes differently regard you, as with race,
gender, sex or national creed.

23. Ultimately, I have learned through my many
friendships in peer alliance that people have their
significance not because of the ‘title’ they have, but
the ‘value’ they project. I am reminded of the
wisdom that ‘some people know the ‘price’ of
everything and the ‘value’ of nothing’ It is a
privilege to be in a community where we are all
striving to accord one another the inherent value
that dwells within us as human beings.
My role here in substantial part is to be not only an
‘ambassador’ for DMH, but to model that recovery
is possible, to emphasize in my work that ‘hope’ is
part of the recovery paradigm, but to underscore
that ‘hope’ is actually an intensive verb, as in
‘hoping’—it requires something of us all—work, fair
play, a commitment to justice in terms of
opportunity and a societal dedication to principle,
lofty, but worth striving for.

24. So the celebration here today is not to herald the
successes of the system or Mr. Jim Butler and this
great Commonwealth. I think today’s effort is to
remind us of the ‘fierce urgency of now’ as we
grapple with the challenges of drug use, addiction,
the intersections of mental health, complex medical
conditions, the constant demand for outcomes that
are peer and consumer-driven, and the need for
new heroic shapers of history and innovation who
will bring fresh energy and perspective to these
daunting realities.
As our Founding Charters indicate and have evolved
to mean, we are the ‘future posterity’ to which we
are called upon to risk our treasure and talents to
creatively and boldly build more inclusive
communities reflective of differences as well as
similarities that bind us in a ‘struggle’—as Frederick
Douglass, the great orator, statesman and anti-
slavery told us nearly two centuries ago, that

25. struggle is always with us if we want to savor
freedom or experience life as one people, one
union.
I can think of no time other time than this to
recommit ourselves to each other in community,
not as a matter of distancing ourselves as
‘others’==consigning one for whatever reason to
‘the other as object’, less regarded, less a citizen,
because of an illness, the result of a fortuity – does
not deserve our recognition, ethical commitment,
embrace—and distorts the possibility of recovery in
community life.
Thank you for the wonderful opportunity to briefly
share with you DMH’s vision of recovery in
community, and to celebrate deservedly so the
tremendous accomplishments of Jim Butler.