The reason why Colorado was finally able to move forward with its behavioral health reform efforts is political will. I have said this several times publicly. Despite the call for behavioral health reform for years, if not decades, the difference this time is that our Governor, our Legislature, and most of our stakeholders wanted to see our system improve. We had support from the very top, and that was a game-changer.

So I was interested to read the findings from a Study on Developmental Leadership, which is described as “the strategic, collective and political process of building political will to make good change happen.” The article says that Developmental Leadership relies on three elements: (1) motivated and strategic individuals with the incentives, values, interests and opportunity to push for change; (2) these motivated people overcome barriers to cooperation and form coalitions with sufficient power, legitimacy, and influence; and (3) the coalitions’ power and effectiveness partly hinges on their ability to contest and de-legitimize one set of ideas and legitimize an alternative set. 

The article also says that, “the default position has been to focus narrowly on political will in terms of individual motivation and intent. But no individual leader can bring about change by themselves. Reform is rarely the product of politicians or other leaders acting alone, but instead relies on strategic alliances, policy networks, and advocacy.”  I slightly disagree with this statement. There was definitely a coalition in Colorado that wanted to reform the behavioral health system, and that group did escalate the pressure for change. Our Governor, Jared Polis, heard the call for change. He listened. He acted. We are fortunate to have a Legislature that was listening to its constituents about the vast improvements that needed to be made. The need for behavioral health services was surging – and this was well before the emergence of Covid, which exacerbated the need even more. If the support of those key players did not exist – if they had not taken the action that was demanded from stakeholders — I firmly believe that we would be having the same conversation that we were having in 2018: we would be saying something needs to change, and yet, little would. The ability for all of these champions to come together and initiate such a remarkable change is substantial. The reform has started and it is happening. Now we just need to finish it.