Advocacy
If you are a MAND member, then Public Policy and Advocacy is central to your career, regardless of your career setting, tenure or nutrition philosophy. Recent policy issues have covered the entire spectrum, such as
- Participate in the update of Long Term Care Facility Regulations and the Assisted Care Regulations to provide the best nutritional care for residents
- codifying the scope of practice of unlicensed professionals
- continuing the State’s licensure provisions for RDNs and CNSs
- extending federal coverage of Child Nutrition programs
- allowing RDNs to write medical nutrition orders
- authorizing CMS to grant billing status to RDNs
We may believe our work as nutrition professionals begins and ends with the public. However, we must also understand that under what conditions, and if, how, when, where, and by whom those services are provided, is determined by federal, state, and local governments, as well as private corporations. Optimizing the provision of such services is the goal of the Academy’s public policy mission. Thus, if nutrition is your profession, then public policy is your business, even if the decision-making seems remote or complex. As someone famous is reputed to have said, “Those who choose not to participate in democracy are doomed to be controlled by those who do.”
MAND’s public policy positions are formed by the MAND Public Policy Panel, which includes:
| Public Policy Coordinator (PPC) | Glenda L. Lindsey, DR.PH, MS, RD, LDN |
| President | Angela Green, RDN, LDN |
| President-Elect | Helene Fletcher, RD, LDN |
| Delegate | Jessica Kiel, RD, LDN, NASM-CPT, CCRP |
| Business & Reimbursement Chair | Evangelina DiSpirito, RDN, LDN |
| Communications Chair | Ashley Lewis. RDN |
| Public Relations Chair | Jana Wolff, RD, LDN |
| State Policy Representative | Carolyn Wescott, RD, LDN |
| State Regulatory Specialist | Arnetta Fletcher, PhD, RDN, LDN |
| Consumer Protection Coordinator (CPC) | Amy Goldsmith RD, LDN |
