On April 17, 2008, I was honored to receive the Diversity Champion Award from the Race Relations & Diversity Task Force at the Birmingham Community House.  What was really important about this honor was that it was for my advocacy of people with severe and persistent mental illness.  It's not often that this kind of advocacy is recognized in the broader community.  This award was really in recognition of New Passages’ work in helping people with mental illness on their Road to Recovery. 

Sometime ago I wrote about New Passages' Liaison Program. I am writing again about this Project because I think it is so important.  To support this project, as you know, we have applied for a grant of $25,000.  We have not heard back yet about the status of our request, but if this grant is awarded, it will allow us to focus even more attention on this vital project.  We believe that vital communities pay attention to mental health concerns.  It's not simply an issue that affects individuals, but an issue that impacts communities.  When an individual with a mental illness becomes socially isolated and locked out of their community by their feelings of shame and harassment, the consequences are devastating.  The burden that a mental illness has on a family can cause enormous stress and disruptions in the lives of all family members.  When a family makes continual adjustments in response to the frequent crisis of a mentally ill family member, some individuals react with hostility or by rejecting the mentally ill family member.  Treating individuals who suffer from mental illness while supporting their families is not only a moral and ethical obligation, but it's also an economic and health and safety issue essential to maintaining the quality of life for every citizen.  New Passages has developed the Liaison Project in response to this pressing community issue.

RISK MANAGEMENT

I don't think many people really understand how complex and risk laden the behavioral health businesses is.  I recently ran across an article on risk management and behavioral healthcare that I would like to share with you.  The point of the article is how complex an enterprise like New Passages is.  Not many people really know that New Passages does more than provide community-based behavioral health services.  As a CEO of a large behavioral health organization, maybe one of the largest in Michigan, I manage a hotel, a restaurant, a school, laundry services, a pharmacy, clinical services, a research facility, building maintenance and repair, information systems services, and a billing company.  In addition, I oversee joint ventures, contractual relationships, implementation of new technology, major construction projects and their financing, federal and state regulations, competition, the peer institutions, payor relationships and contracts, operational systems, strategic initiatives, vendor relationships, patient relations, media relations, external reviews, audits, and inspections.

Over the last two years, New Passages has been developing its Liaison Program.  We have implemented the program in all of our specialized residential programs. The goal is to increase community inclusion by reconnecting consumers with their family and friends.  Each consumer is assigned a liaison staff member whose job it is to communicate with the consumer's family and friends on an ongoing basis, ultimately strengthening the bond between consumers and their natural supports.

Your Road To Recovery 

Over the next 10 months, New PASSAGES will be exploring ways to facilitate the recovery process on the back of each Liaison Program newsletter.  As with substance use, there is no cure for serious mental illness.  However, it is possible to be in a state or a process of recovery.  Recovery in that sense is a journey, which honors each person's uniqueness and promotes a positive sense of self.  This process should raise a person's awareness of the internalized stigma that they have assimilated from the larger society and make them more aware of their own self-worth.