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What’s Wrong with This Picture? Creating Confusion by Sending the Wrong Message

3 minutes of reading / 1 Comment / By /

My social media of choice is Twitter. I’ve been a “Tweep” since 2008, although that includes years of no Twitter during the craziness of politics and elections when I find my blood pressure boiling way too frequently. There are lots of advocates who are also Twitter people. Those I know about I follow. When it makes sense I “retweet” what they’ve said to help them amplify their voices – a bit of a marketing boost, I hope! So you can imagine my surprise when I found this Twitter post the other day: Whoa! Say what? I contacted the advocate who […]

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Rats! Seattle History Exposes a Lesson for Advocates and Care Managers

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rat in sewer

I love Seattle. I have visited several times, all work-related, and always pleasurable. Such a vibrant city, so many good-hearted people. If I didn’t live so far away, I’d visit far more often. This month I visited Seattle again, and for the first time, I enjoyed several tourist days. Delightful! From the Space Needle, to the Chihuly Gardens, from the Pike Place Market food tour, to a tour of the Seattle Underground… which brings me to the point of today’s post. Early Seattle history is very much about the Seattle Underground. It’s so different from any history I’ve learned before,

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She Crossed the Line: An Ethics Violation Which Gave Us All a Black Eye

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bruised - black eye

It was jarring. It was upsetting. And it was taken care of swiftly. One among us decided that advocacy ethics don’t apply to her. And her actions, way outside our best practices and ethics, could have caused a patient to die. This is what happened (with no names or identifiable citations, because it could have been anywhere or anyone, and those specifics aren’t the point): I was first informed of the problem last October (2020) when I heard from the Senior Investigator from the State Board of Nursing. She had identified me as a leader in the profession of independent

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Science, Darwin, and Advocacy Ethics

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“Back in the day” there was a piece of advice that admonished us to remember that if you went on a first date, or when you invited the boss to dinner, or while you were at work, or during similar scenarios where you needed to be aware of the sensitivities of the company you kept, you should make sure you avoided conversations about religion and politics. The reason to avoid those conversations with folks was clear: you always wanted to be sure you didn’t offend someone else at the beginning of a friendship or relationship or ongoing with people you

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Confessions of a Failure

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duck - failure concept

Think of the successful business people you know or know of. They probably run different kinds of businesses, even non-profits. Their businesses are different sizes, too – from solopreneurs to multi-national conglomerates. They represent different sectors of business from manufacturing and selling products to offering personal services – and everything in between. What is the first thing most of them have in common? Most of them, at one time or another, have failed. Some of their failures were highly visible – and well publicized. Some of their failures are never to be spoken of (meaning we have no idea what

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Are You the Chicken? or the Pig?

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If you consider a bacon-and-egg breakfast, what is the difference between the chicken and the pig? It’s a question that determines commitment. While the chicken can produce many eggs over a lifetime, the pig can produce bacon only once. The chicken may be involved in the breakfast, but the pig is totally committed. So what does that have to do with independent advocacy?

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Charging on a Sliding Scale Just Creates a Can of Worms

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sliding scale can of worms

Most advocates and care managers I know have huge hearts. They want to help everyone who needs help! They truly dislike having to charge money for their services (because many have done this work for free for friends and loved ones for a lifetime). Further, in many cases, they don’t give themselves credit for being as capable as they are. So they struggle. They ask themselves how on earth they are going to ask for money from these (possibly desperate) people who contact them, especially when: They are new, and haven’t worked in private practice for very long (if at

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