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Mississippi Advocacy Guide

The Mississippi Education and Advocacy Non-Profit Support (MEANS) is a program of the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program (MHAP).

Since its inception, MHAP has consistently impacted state health and welfare policy. MHAP has effectively built partnerships that work on issues affecting Mississippi families. MHAP has done this largely through the sharing of policy imformation with community partnerships and the community as a whole, developing proposals to share with legislators and public administrators, and working to inform media coverage of the issues.

From issues of welfare reform to Medicaid and CHIP, to the tobacco tax campaign, MHAP has always worked with other groups and intensified its efforts through the strength of many. As a member of the Coalition on Block Grants, the Kellogg Devolution Intiative, Children's Health Matters, MHAP has worked with a diverse array of partners that represent every person in the state. For example, MHAP is the founding member of Communities for a Clean Bill of Health (CCBH), who believes that by increasing the rate of excise tax on cigarettes, Mississippi will benefit by a reduction in the number of people, including children and pregnant mothers, who choose to smoke.

MEANS is under the direction of Roy S. Mitchell, JD, Director of Advocacy of MHAP and the Sisters of Mercy Health System. Roy Mitchell is a Mississippi native and a graduate of the University of Mississippi. Roy is a member of the State Bar of California. He has extensive public interest advocacy experience in direct and indirect legal services, community organizing and advocacy. He has successfully organized statewide coalitions and initiatives and promulgated health and welfare legistation. He has served as the consumer's representative on numerous State Division of Medicaid and Mississippi State Department of Health committes. MHAP's Board of Directors is comprised of dedicated and active health advocates that include a university healthl researcher, a social worker, a pediatric nurse practitioner, and a professor of nursing, rural health clinic manager, a professor of pediatrics, nephrologist and philanthropist.