There are many strengths that unite our district — our entrepreneurial spirit, beautiful beaches, and love of liberty and community. Yet, too many of our families are also connected through the heartaches caused by suicide and addiction. My family is no different.

My family knows first hand the pain of losing someone to addiction and mental illness. Allison, my baby sister, loved children. She worked from 7th grade until her death, at 19 years old, at a neighborhood preschool. Following in my grandmother’s footsteps, Allison was studying to become an elementary school teacher. But like so many, Allison became addicted to opioids. She took her own life just weeks after this picture was taken.

Two years ago I made the promises below. The results were mixed, so I am committed to redoubling my efforts. I did help to increase funding; promote school safety and early intervention, and continue Commissioner Peter's’ leadership decriminalizing substance use and mental illness. The healthcare reforms of the past two session centered upon expanding telemedicine, access to prescription drugs from Canada, and scope of practice for nurses. But there is still much to do!

To help me be most effective within the mental health and substance use policy arena, I spent my first two years working with and learning from more experienced legislators, Senators Harrell and Rouson, Representative Silvers, and Chairs Rodrigues and Massullo. The first bill I introduced was to have one office responsible for combatting the drug abuse epidemic by using the best of our scientific knowledge and learning what was working in our counties to help families and rolling these programs out to other counties. To achieve these goals I introduced a bill to create the Office of Drug and Alcohol Control. Governor DeSantis liked my bill so much that he included in his own Executive Order.

Listening to you: After my first session, constituents asked me to focus as much on healthcare as on mental healthcare/addiction. So, I worked with Senator Albritton (R-Citrus Cty) to reduce the wait time for those on Medicaid needing long term care. With the help of the “Silver Coalition,” we passed our bill. This bill will reduce wait times from weeks to days for people waiting to get into assisted living facilities.

After reading the Tampa Bay Times coverage and speaking to those providing mental health support to school children, I worked closely with Senator Harrell (R) to compose a bill to reform the juvenile Baker Act process. This aim of this bill is to get more mental health services into our schools for students and to reduce the number of unnecessary Baker Acts from our schools. Portions of our bill were added to a bill I sponsored with Representative Silvers (D), below is a video from the Rotunda after the successful passage of this combination bill.