Oakland County Is Asking. Families Should Answer. A public call for input on behavioral health and advocacy priorities.
Families navigating disability and behavioral health systems often hear the same refrain: be patient. Wait for the intake. Wait for the approval. Wait for staffing. Wait for the system to catch up.
But while families wait, real life keeps happening.
Parents are managing staffing shortages at home. Covering gaps when services don’t materialize. Coordinating care, transportation, schedules, and safety — often without pay, backup, or clear information. Providers burn out. Children miss opportunities. Crises escalate that could have been prevented.
These patterns aren’t rare. They’re structural.
Some of the issues families consistently encounter include:
Reimbursement models that don’t reflect the real labor families absorb when services are delayed or unavailable
Fragmented access to information, forcing families to rely on word-of-mouth and informal networks
“Lived experience” input that’s difficult to access unless you already have insider knowledge
Legal protections that exist on paper but don’t reliably translate into timely, usable services
Gaps in community-based supports that push families toward emergency systems instead of prevention
Right now, Oakland County is collecting public input on behavioral health advocacy priorities, and this is a meaningful opportunity for families, providers, and community members to speak directly to these realities.
You can submit comments here:
[LINK TO FORM]
You don’t need the “perfect” language. You don’t need policy expertise. What matters is describing what you’re seeing, what you’re carrying, and where the system isn’t lining up with real life.
If you’ve ever:
waited months for services that technically “exist”
covered care gaps on your own
struggled to find clear, centralized information
watched preventable crises unfold because supports came too late
your voice belongs in this conversation.
At It Can’t Be Zero, we believe systems should be easier to navigate than to fail, and that families shouldn’t have to be superheroes just to access basic support.