While at APA’s 2012 annual meeting, take advantage of an opportunity to contact your legislators about issues that matter to you.

When you come to the APA Member Center in the Exhibit Hall, be sure to visit APA’s Department of Government Relations Advocacy Booth and Advocacy Action Center, where you can write your legislators on issues of importance to psychiatry. This is a great way to participate in advocating on behalf of psychiatry and those with mental illness.

Such advocacy, however, is not a one-shot endeavor: at other times of the year, APA members are urged to use the online Advocacy Action Center, which provides an interactive tool enabling members to respond to action alerts by communicating with their elected officials via e-mail, fax, or telephone and search for pertinent legislation at the federal and state levels. It can be accessed at www.psych.org/MainMenu/AdvocacyGovernmentRelations/GovernmentRelations.

Also at the Advocacy Booth will be staff to answer your questions about legislative and regulatory issues related to mental health and health care reform. Additionally, the following advocacy resources will be available to APA members:

• A free 112th Congressional Directory 

• Federal and state grassroots pocket guides

• Fact sheets on mental health policy issues, testimony to congressional committees, regulatory comments, tips on communicating with your legislators, APA letters to Congress, and recent APA press releases

See you at the Advocacy Booth in the APA Member Center!