Rani Desai and I are engaged in an ongoing discussion with Susan Radius of the Executive Committee and Fran Atkinson, Head of Component Affairs about section membership.  We have been concerned about expanding membership in the Mental Health Section and have been discussing a new membership category or altering the existing Special Health Care Worker category.   In short, we think APHA generally, and the mental health section specifically, would benefit from a two-tier membership level, where case managers and other professional heath workers would join at a much reduced rate and receive the Nations Health but not AJPH.  This would be useful as a whole to APHA since it would auger a mechanism by which we could potentially represent the largest contingent of health care professionals in the US, which would further expand our influence and ability to shape national dialogue. 

Further, the mental health section could grow since the vast majority of public mental health workers such as case managers are sub-terminal degree and do not currently have any type of active collective organization.  We have been strategizing about what tangible deliverables could accrue them, and dissemination of evidence-based practices through pre-conference workshops, the section newsletter, and through the internet are but a few ideas in that regard.  We also are cognizant that seats on Governing Council are granted based on membership size, and that other sections without such a constituency, like epidemiology, might not like a relatively diminished role, especially given reduced membership rates, so we also thought that if the professional membership were, say, 10% of the regular membership, that it would also count just 10% for council seats also.  We thought it important in order to swell the ranks, so to speak, to make the professional membership very inexpensive such that even persons making relatively little income could join.