In politics, particularly during an election season, it is easy for people to be reduced to party labels.
Republican. Democrat. Conservative. Liberal.
Those labels may tell us something, but they rarely tell us everything.
For me, one of the most important measures of an elected official has always been much simpler: Do they show up? Do they listen? And when given an opportunity to help people who are too often overlooked, do they actually do something?
For more than a decade, I have had the opportunity to observe Washington state Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, in his work with behavioral health providers and the people we serve in Southwest Washington.
As president and CEO of Cascade Community Healthcare, I have watched John attend our legislative forums year after year. For roughly 10 years, he has come, listened to the concerns of behavioral health professionals, asked questions and engaged with the difficult realities facing our system.
But his involvement has gone beyond attending meetings.
John helped support the funding that made Cascade's Evaluation and Treatment Center possible. That facility, which opened in 2017, gave our community something it desperately needed: the ability to provide intensive psychiatric treatment closer to home rather than routinely sending people in crisis far outside Lewis County.
Today, our Evaluation and Treatment Center includes a 16-bed secure Evaluation and Treatment Unit and a six-bed Crisis Stabilization Unit. These are not simply buildings or beds. They represent people receiving care near their families and their community during some of the most difficult moments of their lives.
More recently, John also helped support funding for Cascade's Crisis Relief Center, which opened in January of this year. The center provides immediate, short-term support for people experiencing mental health or substance-use crises, with an emphasis on stabilization, de-escalation and connecting people with appropriate continuing care.
Those are concrete examples of what public policy looks like when it reaches the community.
Behavioral health is not an abstract political issue to me. Behind every funding decision and every piece of legislation are real people: someone experiencing a psychiatric crisis, a family trying desperately to find help for a loved one, a person struggling with addiction, or a clinician searching for somewhere safe for a patient to go.
Over the years, I have seen John understand that.
But behavioral health is one of those areas where partisan labels should matter very little.
Mental illness does not ask whether someone is a Republican or a Democrat. Addiction does not check voter registration. A family trying to find treatment for a son, daughter, husband, wife or parent generally doesn't care which political party receives credit for creating a treatment bed or funding a crisis program.
They simply need help.
One thing I have particularly appreciated is John's willingness to listen to the people actually doing this work. Community behavioral health organizations operate on the front lines every day. We know where the gaps are because we see the consequences when those gaps are not filled.
John has listened.
Communities like ours do not always have the same resources as larger metropolitan areas. We cannot assume that specialized care will simply appear when someone needs it. Building a local continuum of behavioral health care takes planning, partnerships and significant investment.
The Evaluation and Treatment Center and the Crisis Relief Center represent part of that continuum.
They also represent years of work by many people — staff members, community leaders, state officials, local partners and others who believed that people in Southwest Washington deserved access to high-quality behavioral health care closer to home.
John was one of the people who participated in that work.
There is also something important about consistency.
Showing up year after year is different from appearing when an election is approaching.
When someone has been sitting across the table from you for a decade — long before the campaign advertisements, political endorsements and election-year attention begin — you develop a pretty good understanding of their record.
You remember who came to the meetings when there were no cameras. You remember who asked questions when the subject was complicated. You remember who was willing to hear about the problems facing people who may never attend a fundraiser, hire a lobbyist or have much political influence at all.
People experiencing serious mental illness, substance-use disorders or acute behavioral health crises are not always in a position to advocate for themselves. Their families may be exhausted. Their providers may be overwhelmed.
That makes it especially important for policymakers to hear their stories through the people who work alongside them.
My experience with John Braun on behavioral health is based on those years of interaction and on projects I can actually point to in our community.
The Evaluation and Treatment Center is there.
The Crisis Relief Center is there.
People are receiving care in those facilities.
Families are finding help closer to home.
And our community has a stronger behavioral health system today because many people — across agencies, professions and political parties — were willing to work together to build it.
That is the kind of cooperation I would like to see more often in public life.
We do not have to agree on everything to acknowledge when people have worked together on something that matters.
Whatever our political differences may be, I believe public service should include recognizing work that has made a measurable difference in people's lives.
For more than a decade, I have watched John Braun show up, listen and work with us on behavioral health.
That is the record I have personally seen, and I think it is worth sharing. I wholeheartedly endorse John Braun.
•••
Dr. Richard J. Stride is a CEO of a local behavioral health agency. He can be reached at docrs53@gmail.com. Follow Dr. Stride on Facebook and Instagram.
