Recovery Month 2003
A SAMHSA web site - "Recovery Month provides a platform to celebrate people in recovery and those who serve them. Each September, thousands of treatment programs around the country celebrate their successes and share them with their neighbors, friends, and colleagues in an effort to educate the public about treatment, how it works, for whom, and why. Substance abuse treatment providers have made significant accomplishments, having transformed the lives of untold thousands of Americans. These successes often go unnoticed by the broader population; therefore, Recovery Month provides a vehicle to celebrate these successes." See especially the page on Wednesday's webcast (Business Community Voices for Recovery) and the page for adding your organizations's events.  
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Center offers mentally ill people hope (Michigan)
Column in the Detroit Free Press by Desiree Cooper on New Center Community Mental Health Services. "one of six mental health organizations nationally to lead a new education program to help chronically mentally ill patients understand and control the symptoms of their disease."  
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Voucher Program will Benefit Recovery Community
Article at Join Together that is a response to another article published earlier this month - "Bob Curley, in his July 10th article about the President's proposed Access to Recovery program, presents a view of addiction recovery that is centered in treatment. The article presents views that are skeptical of community or faith based paths to recovery, inasmuch as these recovery assets are presented as not conforming to traditional treatment outcome measures. It is as if treatment is the goal of all this activity. As Curley notes, the Senate appropriations committee that recently declined to fund the initial request for funds for this program conceded that 'there are many paths to treatment'. Recovery advocates see treatment as one path to recovery."  
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NAMI Releases new TRIAD Report
Story at the NAMI web site on the Treatment/Recovery Information and Advocacy Database report, which was released yesterday - "People living with mental illness in America are paying a high price for failures of the mental health system and continuing public stigma. In a national survey of 3400 people living with the most serious mental illnesses, 86% were in the prime of life, between 18 and 54, but two-thirds are unemployed: 55% live on an annual income below $10,000. In the absence of community treatment, nearly half were hospitalized last year; 40% had crisis emergency care." See also the full report (Adobe Acrobat format).  
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Final Report to the President: President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health
The New Freedom Commission today issued its long-awaited final report, and this page at their web site indexes a variety of related documents, including a web-based version of the final report (with an executive summary) and an Adobe Acrobat version of the full report. The executive summary notes that "To achieve the promise of community living for everyone, new service delivery patterns and incentives must ensure that every American has easy and continuous access to the most current treatments and best support services. Advances in research, technology, and our understanding of how to treat mental illnesses provide powerful means to transform the system. In a transformed system, consumers and family members will have access to timely and accurate information that promotes learning, self-monitoring, and accountability. Health care providers will rely on up-to-date knowledge to provide optimum care for the best outcomes. .... Transforming the system so that it will be both consumer and family centered and recovery-oriented in its care and services presents invigorating challenges. Incentives must change to encourage continuous improvement in agencies that provide care. New, relevant research findings must be systematically conveyed to front-line providers so that they can be applied to practice quickly. Innovative strategies must inform researchers of the unanswered questions of consumers, families, and providers. Research and treatment must recognize both the commonalities and the differences among Americans and must offer approaches that are sensitive to our diversity. Treatment and services that are based on proven effectiveness and consumer preference - not just on tradition or outmoded regulations - must be the basis for reimbursements."

See also National Council on Disability Applauds Presidential Mental Health Report, the NMHA press release, President’s Commission Offers Prescription for Broken Mental Health System, the initial statement by SAMHSA Director Charles Curie, the AP story reprinted at PsycPORT, New Ways Sought to Treat Mentally Ill, and President's Commission Reports on America's Crumbling Mental Health System and Mental Health Commission Report Underscores Need for Mental Health Parity (both from US Newswire). Links to additional follow-up stories will be posted as they appear.

  
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After mental illness recovery, peers help those still struggling (Georgia)
AP story at AccessNorthGa.com on Georgias certified peer specialist program - "the first in the country to be able to bill Medicaid for its services.... Peer specialists help people with mental illness develop recovery plans and learn survival skills, including how to get and keep jobs."  
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Recovery house sets example (Ohio)
Marietta Times story - "The Mid-Ohio Valley Fellowship Home ... is a model for community-based residential recovery homes throughout the area, say those associated with the facility. The 30-year-old program has blended into the neighborhood and expanded from a facility for male alcoholics only into a comprehensive family program that includes separate services for men, women, and women with children. The Mid-Ohio Valley Fellowship Home is being used as a model for how a proposed home in Marietta would operate..."  
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Recovery center will host open house Friday (Wisconsin)
La Crosse Tribune story on Partners in Empowerment, a drop-in and resource center in downtown La Crosse for individuals with mental health issues. The center is "run by peers for people with a mental health diagnosis. It offers a variety of services, including peer-to-peer mentoring, a support group, arts and crafts materials and classes, literacy programs, movies and a safe, nonjudgmental environment......The center also has five computers connected to the Internet, plus a library of materials on mental health as well as fiction and nonfiction books."  
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