HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE FIELD
Feature Articles:
- One Community Partnership's Six Years of Success–A Legacy of Service to Continue
- Our Voices, Our Choices and FACT-MO: A Beautiful Friendship
- Montana Works Toward Statewide Wraparound
- Wraparound Oregon, Multnomah County's "I Fit In" Campaign
One Community Partnership's Six Years of Success—A Legacy of Service to Continue
Download Report (PDF)
One Community Partnership, Broward County Florida's system of care, led by Project Director Scott Silverman, is inching toward graduation but they are not going quietly. They held a large community gathering, not to end their efforts, but to celebrate their accomplishments and kick off the next wave of community collaboration. To top it all off, they produced a book of their experiences and what they have learned over the course of their cooperative agreement entitled, 2002-2008 Six Years of Success—A Legacy of Service To Continue (PDF) . This beautiful and delightful 35 page book lets us all enjoy One Community Partnership's journey and includes sections on how they got started and their community-based, family-driven, youth-centered, and culturally competent services. Particularly interesting are the Sections of Impact (PDF) , pages 29–33, and What We Learned (PDF), page 34. Our hats are off to this marketing savvy system of care community team who kicked off the next phase of their journey with a big bang.
Our Voices, Our Choices and FACT-MO: A Beautiful Friendship
When St. Louis, Missouri families decided to develop a family organization to ensure that consequential family voice would help to shape their local service system, they worked with the Governing Council of their local system of care to do what many other communities have attempted—develop a local family-run organization. As a result, Our Voices, Our Choices (OVOC) was officially established as a non-profit corporation in Missouri in early 2008.
Less conventional is one of the key strategies the OVOC families have used to help establish, build, and solidify their family organization: a formal mentoring partnership with an existing family organization from an adjacent community. Family Advocacy and Community Training (FACT) has advocated for families and children in neighboring St. Charles County, Missouri for more than 20 years. (FACT-MO served as the family-run organization that supported the now-graduated CMHS system of care initiative, St. Charles County Partnership with Families.) The challenge of effectively engaging families in St. Louis' Youth in Transition system of care initiative is a daunting one, since the population of focus is children and youth who are already in the custody of the city and county child welfare system, the Children's Division. Many times children and youth in foster care become estranged and disconnected from their families, making reunification less likely, and leaving vulnerable young people without key anchoring relationships that are so important to the overall health of children and youth.
Once the vision for OVOC became clear, the bulk of Federal funding for the six-year St. Louis initiative had been spent, so it would take an extraordinary approach to create an effective family organization within a compressed timeframe. Enter FACT-MO. Through some persuasion, Denise Gould, Executive Director, and Audrey Yarbrough, Associate Director, were convinced by their St. Louis neighbors and State officials to enter into a mentoring contract with the new organization emerging beneath the Arch.
Audrey and Denise have been working hand-in-hand with the board of directors of OVOC this year. Recently the board voted to extend their mentorship for an additional three months to see the new organization through its hiring of its founding executive director and ensure that strategic decision-making processes are clear and viable before the official partnership ends. At a recent meeting in Nashville, board members and staff of OVOC uniformly praised the mentorship effort as an effective one, and agreed that it might serve as a useful model for similar grassroots family organization efforts in other communities.
The respect their St. Charles mentors have shown OVOC for their self-guided determination has been key to the success of this relationship. The Youth in Transitions Governing Council and Michelle Smart, Project Director, have closely supported the arrangement and all involved are excited that nearly 50 applications for OVOC's executive director position have now been narrowed down to five highly qualified candidates. The executive director will be selected this month to take the reins and begin running the organization in partnership with the OVOC board of directors. Parent partner services are already operating out of the new organization and a clear mission awaits the agency's new leadership as the innovative partnership with its older sister from across the river winds down.
Montana Works Toward Statewide Wraparound
If you are looking for a boost in your energy level and a shot of enthusiasm for your work on behalf of children and youth with mental health needs and their families, check out a new Web site recently launched by the State of Montana, www.wraparoundmt.org. Montana is busy developing a statewide initiative using a wraparound process by growing their own facilitators across disciplines and systems. One of the countries largest geographical States but with the smallest number of people, Montana utilizes the best their citizens have to offer through:
- A senior faculty that reflects Native American traditional healing and cultural practices, community providers, administrators, researchers, and family members;
- A training curriculum that requires self-selected trainers to join the senior faculty and share their experiences, while strengthening and deepening their knowledge, skills, and practice simultaneously with the support of collective and individual coaching and mentoring.
As this wraparound initiative moves into its third community, Montana simultaneously explores certification that will ensure, even further, a uniform knowledge base for their wraparound facilitators. They expect this process will expand their identification of gaps and resource opportunities as they go.
Kudos to Montana for having cracked the "learning community" ceiling! Good luck with your continuing efforts!
Wraparound Oregon, Multnomah County's "I Fit In" Campaign
On May 8, 2008, National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day, Wraparound Oregon launched it's "I Fit In" campaign. The campaign integrated the idea that all children and youth need positive and supportive environments that assist in promoting healthy social, emotional, and physical development. The message continues to be that when children realize they have support from their families, friends, neighbors, and school, they "fit in." The campaign included airing a public service announcement (YouTube) on television, radio, and 39 movie screens, as well as placing print ads on public buses. Wraparound Oregon also held an assembly at Beach Middle School to encourage children to support their family and friends who are living with mental health challenges.
Watch the 'I Fit In' Video (You Tube)
According to Wraparound Oregon, the assembly at Beach Middle School was the most powerful and rewarding event of their campaign. According to Naomi Bledsoe, Public Information Specialist for Wraparound Oregon, the usually-fidgety 6th, 7th and 8th graders were so focused on the message of hope and resilience of the speech of one of their peers, a 12 year old with bi-polar disorder, that the audience could have heard a pin drop. The young man told 60 students that his condition "made him angry and sad all the time." He acted out and got into trouble because of this mental health condition. The youth told his peers that he just wanted a friend to be nice to him and make him feel like he fit in at school. To cope with his issues, the youth took up horseback riding, which makes him feel better and stay positive. He also told the students that he takes medicine to help him on a daily basis and not get into trouble at home and in school. He encouraged students to help each other and reach out to form friendships. The youth informed the audience that he wants everyone to feel like they fit in and find things that make them happy. He spoke from his heart and from one peer to another, making his message meaningful and powerful.
Other guest speakers included a community mental health coordinator and a chief family law judge. The professionals talked to the youth about keeping on a positive track in life and how some mental health conditions stem from many factors—family history, environmental factors, and how one's brain functions. Youth were asked to write down questions in advance to encourage asking anonymous questions. The panel answered some very serious question from the audience. The questions mirrored the numerous challenges youth face on a daily basis: "How do I know if I'm pregnant?" "What is one of the reasons that most kids hurt or kill themselves?" "Is mental health dangerous?" The panel told everyone that reaching out to an adult or someone you trust is a must. They also went over where to go to get help and how you can help yourself or a friend when they face a crisis.
Wraparound Oregon staff expressed that their proudest moment yet came after the assembly, when many of the students gave the youth speaker high fives and disclosed that they too had bi-polar disorder. Teachers and school administrators now know the impact of what an anti-stigma campaign can do for their students and how the community together can decrease negative attitudes about mental health.
For more information please contact Naomi Bledsoe, Public Information Specialist for Wraparound Oregon, at 503-257-1728 or e-mail nbledsoe@mesd.k12.or.us.