When Maria Loconsolo didn’t get an email terminating her employment on Valentine’s Day, she regained a smidge of hope that she would avoid the mass firings of federal employees occurring nationwide.
But since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, she’d heeded reports that federal employees would be quickly locked out of the system. She spent Saturday after Valentine's Day collecting personnel documents, records about her performance and other vital things, before turning back to her email once more.
This time, the termination letter was there. Loconsolo had worked as a regional health advisor with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Region 7 for just 10 months.
“I planned to devote the next 20 years at least of my life to this,” she said. “There was no reason for me to think I wouldn't be able to. I was all in and committed to be a public servant for the rest of my career.”
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration provides grants to states and local communities, supports education and training, and collects data on behavioral health issues. Region 7 covers Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri.
Loconsolo, of Prairie Village, is a trained clinical professional counselor in the state of Kansas, a license she pursued because she said she's always been a helper at heart.
In her role as a regional behavioral health advisor, Loconsolo said, she spent most of her time meeting with people and organizations throughout the region who were involved in the mental health and substance abuse treatment systems, and connecting them with resources to fill gaps in coverage. Loconsolo said she’s always been a systemic thinker, so the job allowed her to leverage that mindset.
It was a role she felt was tailor-made for her.
But Loconsolo was among thousands of federal workers fired due to the Trump administration’s widespread cuts. She believes her employment was unlawfully terminated. And she isn’t the only one. SAMHSA Region 7 is down to just one staff member out of a previous four, while other regional offices have been totally depleted.
Nationwide, more than 10% of the staff working for SAMHSA were fired this month as part of the government-wide cuts led by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, task force. Probationary workers, health officials, newly hired regional directors, team leads on 988 projects — no post was spared.
According to the letter Loconsolo received, she was let go because she wasn’t “fit for continued employment” because her “ability, knowledge and skills” did not fit the agency’s needs. The letter also suggested her performance had not been adequate.
Her performance reviews say otherwise.
“I even got an award from the director of the larger office, proving that my performance was excellent, especially for somebody who was just in their first 10 months,” Loconsolo said. “What hurt most about that was that I take immense pride in the work I do. I was incredibly proud to be serving the American people.”
In the week since, Loconsolo has spent the days searching for a job that aligns with her desire to help people, but the options are limited so she’s had to look outside the mental health arena. She’s concerned she and her husband might need to leave the Kansas City metro she’s called home for a decade and he for more than two decades.
Outside of the job hunt, she said she’s trying to be an advocate, spreading word about the realities for federal employees and supporting colleagues meeting the same fate. Words of support from her friends, family and former coworkers are keeping her going.
She’s also trying to keep the mood light with other activities, like feeding and watching the birds. But it isn’t easy. More than the financial and career stability, her heart breaks for people who aren’t getting needed support.
“I feel such a strong desire to try to stand in the gaps and offer whatever shield I can to our most vulnerable community members,” Loconsolo said, choking up as she discusses the reality of her situation. “The fact I can’t do that for them … it’s really hard.”
Loconsolo is leaving behind a lot of unfinished work. She had spent months building connections in different states with people working in early psychosis programs — immediate and comprehensive treatments for individuals losing contact with reality for the first time. Later this year, she planned to speak at a conference bringing together many of these people to help map resources and fill gaps.
And she was working with researchers and peer support experts on a national advisory for addressing substance use in those early psychosis programs. Using community feedback, the team planned to demonstrate how widespread the issue is.
Despite the turbulence of the past weeks, Loconsolo said she'd still love to one day work in the same job again.
“The vast majority of federal employees truly enter into their jobs because they want to serve the American public,” she said. “I think that there's been that kind of false dichotomy that's been put forth in some rhetoric, and I just want to make it very clear that we serve under every president and every administration and we serve the goals and the priorities of that administration. Because what we serve is the American people and we serve the Constitution.”
