Humanizing Federal Workers

New Interview Series: Introducing Alina & Behavioral Health Justice

To start off 2026, I am starting a new series of articles aimed at amplifying the voices, perspectives, and stories of some of my fellow fired feds. We are calling it Humanizing Federal Workers: Interviews With Those Called to Serve. As I’ve There are so many amazing Americans who felt the call to serve, and came to important roles within the federal government, to solve problems and support the health and wellness of our fellow Americans. I am pleased to begin this series with an interview with my former SAMHSA colleague Alina, I will let her introduce herself.

I’m Alina, a former federal employee who was RIF’d at the start of 2025. After months of administrative leave, rehiring, and being terminated again, many federal workers like me have struggled to make the personal and professional harm caused by the government’s downsizing visible to the public. Scott's interview gave me a chance to express my concerns about the mass layoffs of federal workers and the serious threat they pose to our nation's wellbeing and our government’s constitutional integrity. As a behavioral health professional, I am also fighting to restore dismantled federal public and behavioral health agencies and to protect continued funding for life-saving programs. To understand why urgent, collective action is needed to prevent the collapse of the nation’s behavioral health infrastructure, subscribe to my Substack, Behavioral Health Justice.

I sent Alina a few questions, to give her the opportunity to share with you all her call to federal service, the impact of the mass firings for her personally and for our country, and what gives her hope for the future. Enjoy the interview!

Scott: What did your role in federal service mean to you?

Alina: I joined the federal workforce as a behavioral health advisor at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), drawn by the agency’s mission to strengthen and expand behavioral health services nationwide.

When I was sworn into federal service, I recognized that my commitment to public service extended beyond behavioral health alone. I pledged to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic… and to faithfully discharge the duties of the office I was about to enter.” This oath underscored that federal employment carries responsibilities distinct from those of other organizations.

The oath of office is one of the defining features of federal service. By pledging to uphold the U.S. Constitution, federal workers assume an additional duty that guides how they carry out their responsibilities. This pledge affirms loyalty to the Constitution’s fundamental principles, as articulated in the Bill of Rights, which were established to protect individual liberties and ensure justice for the American people.

For federal employees, this means developing a clear understanding of how the government operates as an institution designed to preserve constitutional integrity through checks and balances, including the separation of powers among coequal branches. It also requires recognizing that these systems exist to ensure decision-making at all levels of government remains nonpartisan and grounded in democratic principles—reflecting a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.

All federal programs, practices, and policies must align with the supreme law of the land: the Constitution. The oath of office serves as a continual reminder that constitutional principles take precedence over partisan politics and political interests.

Serving as a federal worker in the behavioral health field gave me the opportunity to protect both the health and the constitutional rights of the American people. This intersection highlights how safeguarding public health is itself a form of protecting individual liberty and advancing justice, underscoring the deep and inseparable connection between health and justice.

How has your unlawful firing impacted you?

Alina: My unlawful firing affected me on many levels. My position was abruptly taken from me, and I was falsely accused of “poor performance” and publicly labeled as “waste, fraud, and abuse” for doing work intended to protect the health and well-being of the American people. My colleagues and I experienced this trauma collectively, trapped for months in a destabilizing cycle of rehirings and firings. We are still processing what occurred, even as life-saving federal agencies are being systematically weakened and we struggle to find a path forward.

At the same time, funding cuts to behavioral health deepened my concern about the consequences of dismantling critical public and behavioral health programs. The defunding of behavioral health services is expected to increase deaths related to suicide, drug overdose, and untreated mental illness. It is also likely to contribute to rising rates of violent crime—including homicide and gun-related incidents—as well as increases in hospitalizations and emergency room visits. Defunding life-saving programs that provide access to mental health and substance use treatment—such as clinics, medications, telehealth services, case management, and peer support—will further exacerbate isolation, anxiety, loneliness, and depression. These are the very factors that drove the rise in suicide rates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

As these threats grow, I feel an increasing responsibility to speak out in defense of behavioral health programming, even as I struggle to determine my own next steps. Despite being unlawfully terminated from the federal workforce, I remain committed to my oath to serve the American people and to protect their constitutional rights against “all enemies, foreign and domestic.” The mass firing of federal workers and the dismantling of agencies represent unconstitutional, undemocratic, and unlawful actions, as the executive branch disregarded the role of the legislative branch in implementing widespread layoffs and dismantling federal institutions.

What should our fellow Americans know or understand about our firings, that they probably don’t?

Alina: Many Americans lack a basic understanding of how their government works. That knowledge gap became especially visible when a businessman who was not elected by the public entered the federal government, created an agency without congressional approval, and used it to dismiss federal employees as “waste, fraud, and abuse.”

The larger problem is not just the action itself, but the public’s limited ability to question it. Without a working understanding of government programs, funding, and oversight, Americans are left unequipped to evaluate claims about inefficiency or misconduct. In that vacuum, sweeping accusations can take hold without scrutiny.

As roughly 300,000 federal workers have been unlawfully laid off, the most basic questions remain unanswered: Who were these workers? What work did they do? And why were their roles so invisible to the public before they were eliminated?

These questions point to a broader issue of civic responsibility. Who is responsible for ensuring civic education and public engagement? Who explains how government agencies function, how policies are implemented, and how taxpayer dollars are actually spent?

While this responsibility does not formally belong to federal workers, many of us have stepped into that role—often at significant personal cost. The consequences of public disengagement are now clear. A government designed to serve the people cannot function when the people are kept at a distance from understanding how it operates.

What are you most concerned about, in terms of the impact of the mass firings and cuts on our country and the American people?

Alina: The Trump administration, working through the Department of Health and Human Services alongside RFK Jr., is waging a deliberate attack on public health and science. By cutting funding to life-saving agencies and removing career experts, the administration is replacing evidence-based policy with misinformation and ideology.

In January 2025, HHS began a 25 percent workforce reduction that disproportionately eliminated vaccine experts, physicians, scientists, researchers, and public health advisors. The unconstitutional restructuring of HHS removed the very professionals responsible for disease prevention, drug safety, and emergency preparedness, while opening the door for political loyalists to spread medical misinformation.

At the same time, the administration has weaponized federal funding by targeting organizations that challenge its agenda. The recent defunding of the American Academy of Pediatrics illustrates how scientific disagreement is being punished rather than debated.

Core agencies including the CDC, FDA, HRSA, and SAMHSA—have been hollowed out and defunded without congressional approval, weakening the nation’s capacity to protect public health, respond to crises, and prevent avoidable loss of life.

Dismantling SAMHSA alone places the lives of an estimated 84 million Americans living with mental health and substance use disorders at risk. In 2025, SAMHSA lost nearly half of its workforce, eliminated $1.7 billion in block grants to state health departments, and cut approximately $350 million in funding for addiction treatment and overdose prevention. As a result, the nation’s behavioral health infrastructure is being systematically dismantled, with no alternative funding sources in place to replace or rebuild the services that communities depend on.

In response, multiple behavioral health organizations have warned the public about the severe consequences of these cuts. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), for example, cautioned that widespread layoffs at SAMHSA and other federal agencies threaten to undermine essential mental health and substance use services at a time when the country is already facing overlapping mental health, overdose, and suicide crises. SAMHSA plays a central role in supporting state treatment systems, training the behavioral health workforce, funding crisis services such as the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, and administering nearly $7 billion in grants relied upon by millions of Americans. Losing a significant portion of its workforce jeopardizes access to care, weakens community-based programs, and leaves people with mental illness and substance use conditions without critical support.

How have you pivoted since your firing? What are you doing now?

Alina: I was officially laid off on July 14, 2025, after the US Supreme Court lifted an injunction that had blocked mass firings without first determining the legality of the Trump administration’s reduction-in-force actions. Since then, I have been seeking work in the public health and behavioral health sectors. However, the defunding and dismantling of the nation’s public and behavioral health infrastructure has triggered widespread layoffs across state, local, and county health departments. Private organizations have also been affected by these funding cuts, saturating an already strained public health job market.

Searching for work amid rising unemployment and an increasingly competitive labor market is deeply stressful. Even so, my commitment to public service and behavioral health remains unwavering, which is why I continue to advocate for public health and behavioral health justice while pursuing my next role.

What gives you hope? What do you see, or are a part of, that tells you there is a brighter tomorrow at some point in the future?

AR: What gives me hope are acts of courage; the willingness to speak up, to challenge power, and to refuse silence. This is not a time for complicity. It is a time to use every megaphone available to us, and to build one when none exists. Whenever I see people using their voices to speak truth to power, my belief that change is possible grows stronger.

The abuses of power we have witnessed over the past year have exposed serious cracks in our system that must be repaired to prevent any erosion of the U.S. Constitution and the system of checks and balances. I remain hopeful that new policies will emerge to strengthen democratic accountability and constitutional integrity across all branches of government.

When federal workers, health professionals, and everyday Americans stand up to misinformation and lawlessness, I am reminded that people still value truth over falsehood and democracy over tyranny. When Americans reaffirm the principles that shaped the Constitution, they assert a simple truth: this government belongs to them. That conviction is my source of hope—because a brighter future, one that allows us to rebuild from the ground up, will not be given to us. It will have to be fought for.

Scott: Thank you so much Alina for sharing your thoughts and perspectives in this interview. Readers, please be sure to check out and subscribe to Alina’s new Substack Behavioral Health Justice. She has a wealth of experience and knowledge to share!

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Thank you all for reading this first installment of the Humanizing Federal Workers series. Please help us amplify these important stories by sharing this article with your friends, family, and colleauges.

If you are a former fed who would like to share your story, please send me a message here, or you can email me at scott.m.gagnon@gmail.com

See you in the next one!

Scott, The Radical Preventionist