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A Journey to Employment
As a person with a disability, it is understandable why I might be considered an advocate for people’s rights. Although I am currently the Special Assistant to the Commissioner at the New York State Office of Mental Health responsible for consumer and family affairs, I regularly experience issues...
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Wellness Self-Management
Wellness Self-Management (WSM) is a curriculum-based clinical practice designed to assist adults to effectively manage serious mental health problems. The WSM program was based on Illness Management and Recovery (IMR), one of the nationally recognized evidence-based practices for adults with...
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How About Recovery for People with Psychiatric Disabilities in Long-term Care?
Happily, the concept of “recovery” has become a powerful force in the mental health system. We talk now about a “recovery-oriented system” and “recovery-oriented services.” In doing so we express our sense of hope—our conviction—that people with serious, long-term psychiatric...
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The NYSPA Report: New Federal Parity Law May Expand Coverage for Mental Illness in New York
This edition of the NYSPA Report discusses the impact that new federal parity legislation may have on the coverage of mental health and substance abuse services in New York State. The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, signed into law on October 3, 2008,...
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The Economics of Recovery: The Making of a Consumer Advocate
It was in the fall of 99’, Ira and I were having our weekly meeting at Starbucks in Larchmont. We would linger for hours in those big, plush club chairs sipping Lattés and snacking on cookies – caffeine and sugar - just the fuel two bipolars needed to figure out their next career move. We...
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Supporting Transformation Towards Recovery-Based Services
Since the late 1980’s, I’ve had a strong belief in the principles and practices of Psychiatric Rehabilitation and their ability to assess an individual’s readiness to change, intervene to increase readiness if needed, and increase the skills and supports each person needs to enjoy life to its...
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Successful Consumers Make Successful Providers
There is a Danish proverb that says, “He knows the water best who has waded through it.” For those who are traversing the waters of mental illness, this is particularly true, and it is with this knowledge that Federation of Organizations was among the first to begin employing individuals who...
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Stigma and Recovery: New Approaches to Old Challenges
Thomas R. Insel, MD stated, “Psychiatry is the only part of medicine where there is actually greater stigma for receiving treatment for these illnesses than for having them” (Insel, NIMH Report 2006). There are many aspects to the stigma surrounding mental illness. It manifests itself as a...
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Recovery: A Participant in Life
Living one’s own life: a rather simple concept but somehow thrown on the back burner. Somewhere along the path in this journey of mental illness, we lose ourselves. Prior to the onset of my mental illness—well into adulthood—I was someone: a daughter, an educated woman, a teacher, a wife, a...
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Quality Life Promotes Recovery
What may have been lost and left out in discussions on mental health treatment has been the importance of “a quality of life” as a tool of mental health treatment. What I have become aware of is the need for consumers to live at a standard that is not separate from what he/she sees as preferred...
