Changing Habits Transforming Lives
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By Mike Fitzpatrick, NAMI Executive Director
It takes courage for a person to talk about living with a mental illness. That’s especially the case if you are a teenager. Even more so when disclosure takes place in front of a television audience of millions on the hit show American Idol.
Read more here…http://blog.nami.org/2012/02/american-idol-singing-against-stigma.html
Forum House, of Westfield, a division of HRU, recently received a generous donation of food items, worth $500, for its community food pantry from DCP Midstream. The food was brought to Forum House by Kevin Kennedy, DCP Midstream’s Westfield Terminal Manager, on February 9th and received by members who stocked the food pantry. The Forum House Food Pantry serves over 300 families annually and is affiliated with the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts. In these difficult economic times, Forum House’s Food Pantry has been relied upon by many more families and is grateful for this kind and thoughtful donation.
DCP Midstream LLC, headquartered in Denver, CO, with an office on Summit Lock Road in Westfield, is the second-largest natural gas gatherer and processor, the largest natural gas liquids producer, and one of the largest marketers of natural gas and natural gas in the United States.
For more information about Forum House, or to make a donation to the Food Pantry, please call 413-562-5293.
On Saturday, March 24th at 10:30 a.m. HRU will hold its 2nd annual HRU run4FUN! run2overcome from the south parking lot at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. We expect 200 runners to follow the flat and fast course, north along the river, under the Memorial Bridge and across Liberty St and southbound on Main Street to Broad and back to the Hall of Fame. Walkers follow the same course until Riverfront Park, where they turnaround for the return to the Hall of Fame. The cost is only $25.00 in support of HRU’s Changing Habits, Transforming Lives program – a different approach to workforce development. Go HERE to register today!
Samuel’s Sports Bar will once again host participants for a lunch buffet afterward – bring your money to purchase beverages. Our thanks to Eddie Grimaldi and the great folks at Samuel’s!
Volunteer Income Tax Assistance sites available to low-income families across the region
Our friends Springfield Partners for Community Action, Valley Opportunity Council, and United Way of Pioneer Valley are joining forces as part of an annual effort to increase tax refunds and credits for low- income families and individuals. Together they will operate and fund several free community tax preparation programs and Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) sites throughout the region.
The VITA program is focused on helping qualifying individuals and families receive free tax services and learn if they are eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) by properly preparing and filing their Federal tax return. SPCA is celebrating its 10th Anniversary for VITA tax preparation. As part of this celebration they will hold an EITC Awareness Day on Friday, January 27, 2012 at 10:00 a.m. at their offices on 721 State Street.
For more information, a complete list of sites and contact information, please visit United Way Pioneer Valley at www.uwpv.org. Information also available on attached flyer.
HRU is pleased to welcome Vernon Carter as Lighthouse’s new Manager. Vernon comes to our agency from Gandara Mental Health Center, where he has served as Program Director of their STARR residential program. Lighthouse staff and members are excited to begin working with Vernon, who joins HRU on January 30th.
Lisa Thiel from our Tradewinds Clubhouse inSouthbridge, has just been notified that she has been selected as a member of the Faculty for the International Center for Clubhouse Development. Lisa will join a committed team of staff and members from around the world who do accreditation visits to clubhouses to ensure that a clubhouse is providing the full range of opportunities to its members, in line with the International Standards for Clubhouse Development. Congratulations to Lisa on being chosen as a member of the Faculty!
Luisa Plump, Manager of Star Light Center in Florence, spent a week in Florida as part of a team of community leaders developing a plan to train stakeholders on how to prevent, identify and address assaults against individuals with disabilities. Joining her, on this multidisciplinary team, were Helen Polt, Staff Investigator for the Department of Mental Health, Maura McCarthy, Assistance District Attorney in Worcester and Sergeant Stephan Dickinson from the Westfield Police Department. This team is developing a plan to provide consultation and training to hospitals and other community and provider groups.
ICCD Clubhouses are now included by SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) as an evidence based practice. Evidence based practices are interventions, programs or models for which scientific evidence shows that the practice improves outcomes. We have known for many years that the clubhouses we operate at HRU demonstrate that individuals recovering from mental illness are able to take back control of their lives, return to work, or school and become contributing members of their communities when they have the support and services of their clubhouses available to them. It’s great to know that the research has demonstrated that clubhouses are effective models, particularly demonstrating the effectiveness of employment services through the clubhouse model. HRU’s clubhouse programs are located in Springfield, Westfield, Florence, and Southbridge.
I recently returned from a meeting, with fellow executive directors of vocational services across the state, where we were lamenting about the multi-year steady erosion of state dollars for vocational training services for individuals with disabilities.
Contrary to the way we are perceived by some, as a group, providers embrace the shift toward ‘paying for performance’ when it comes to employment placement of individuals. As a provider we believe that, the more individuals an organization like HRU places, the greater the amount of reimbursement it would receive. Some want to cap the amount of reimbursement to a maximum obligation regardless of the number or ability of individuals placed, which sets up the system for providers to either lose or break-even, but never win…and we all like to win some times.
The real issue we have is not ‘pay for performance’ but that in government contacts, the new reality is that everyone should be placed, without allocating any money toward training them prior to their placement. This doesn’t take into consideration differing abilities or even the job market where entry level jobs are scarce.
When unemployment is low, businesses are willing to utilize some of their training dollars to address incoming employee deficit areas to fill open positions and, quite honestly, they lower the bar to entry. In times like today, the bar goes back up and employers are unwilling to accept candidates that have deficits in areas such as soft-skills, hard skills, stamina, or emotional IQ – all areas that can be taught and reinforced with proper training, yet those training dollars have been disappearing. The trade off of not training has not only individual consequences but negative social and economic consequences within our communities across the state.
We have seen a lot of stimulus money that funded bridge repair and highway enhancements, with the intent to stimulate the economy while shoring up our infrastructure. I would submit that training for chronically unemployed, ‘pay for performance’, and moving those unemployed individuals off of entitlements is a stimulus package itself that also shores up that very same infrastructure, but with additional benefits of a financially and emotionally healthier community.
For the past 4 years Star Light Center members and staff have helped provide joy through an “Adopt A Family” effort during the holiday season. It has become one of the many things we look forward to during this time, as it gives everyone a chance to give back to our Northampton area community.
Because the need is so great, this year Star Light Center adopted TWO families in the Hampshire County community through Safe Passage and the Department of Children and Families. Members, staff and others from the Northampton community came together to donate two large crates containing clothes, dolls, stuffed animals, board games and gift cards. A genuine sense of excitement could be felt as colleagues gathered and organized the gifts, watching the crates quickly fill to the top. It is a project that has allowed everyone at Star Light Center to share the spirit and warmth of the holidays with those who greatly need it, and all involved are thankful for the opportunity.
PHOTO: From left to right… Joanne Connelly, Lynn Pezzolesi and Debra Dalton display some of the many presents collected for two families during StarLightCenter’s annual ‘Adopt A Family’ holiday program.
