Provider's Meeting This Friday

Dear Mental Health Provider:

We are very excited to re-introduce the Mental Health Collaborative.  The first meeting will be held on 

May 6, 2011 at 9:30 am at the McNulty Center.   

Following the Healthy Community Council meeting in March several of us were inspired to begin again.  The idea of this meeting is to gather mental health providers together for support, awareness of community issues, build relationships, and learn each others’ strengths/ specialties.

Some of the topics to discuss include:

1)      How private providers who accept Medicaid and CSA funding could rotate a seat at the FAPT table.  If we offer to rotate the seat amongst our agencies then the FAPT folks and CSA coordinator will have available to them the entire network of private providers in our community versus one individual only. 

2)      Discuss the need and desire for ongoing continuing education trainings. 

3)      Determine the role we as a group would like to play in the community in an ongoing way such as advocacy, education, peer support, etc.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to contact any of the following.  No RSVP is necessary please just show up!

Be well,

Jennifer Henkel, Harrisonburg League of Therapists

jennifer.henkel@leagueoftherapists.com

Greg Czyszczon, Crossroads Counseling Center

gczyszczon@csv-inc.com

Rebekah Brubaker, McNulty Center, Community Services Board

rbruba@hrcsb.org

New Report on Children's Mental Health

Take a look at this new report from Voices for Virginia's Children:

Children's Mental Health in Virginia

Of particular interest was this quote from the bottom of page 8:

"It is noteworthy that in the midst of such complexity and fragmentation, a few localities have nevertheless developed state-of-the-art systems of care for children with mental health disorders."

Do we have a state-of-the-art system of care?
What can we learn from other localities that might benefit children in our area?

Interesting Links to Consider

As we prepare for our first meeting this Monday, February 14 at 9:30 AM at HLT, take some time to look/listen to the following:

http://county.milwaukee.gov/WraparoundMilwaukee.htm

http://www.jmu.edu/wmra/pgm/insight/VI020311.mp3

See you Monday!

Rescheduling Our First Meeting

Thanks to the wonderful, snowy weather, we were unable to meet yesterday.

We have rescheduled the first meeting of the Children's Services Collaborative for

9:30 AM on Monday, February 14. 

(In the event of inclement weather, the SNOW DATE will be Friday, February 18 at 9:30 AM.)

Our first meeting will take place at 312 S. Main St., the office of the Harrisonburg League of Therapists.

We hope to see you there!

What is the Collaborative?

Dear Community Member:

You are invited to join us in beginning a community-wide conversation about how to evolve best practices for the care and support of children and families with ongoing mental health needs. Specifically, we will consider the needs of our most challenging cases e.g. involvement with multiple service providers and high intensity programs such as in-home services, therapeutic day treatment, and/or hospitalization/residential history.

The goal of the Children's Services Collaborative is to determine best practices for our local community with regard to stewardship of funds, clinical approaches, qualifications and training of staff members, and multicultural needs. Together, we will develop ways to ensure that services are provided at appropriate levels of frequency, intensity and duration. We hope to achieve our goals after 5 meetings; interested individuals can continue to meet if desired.

The Collaborative will bring interprofessional conversation and focus to this crucial topic. To this end, individuals representing a wide range of child and family services are invited to participate.  If you would like to forward this to anyone we missed please feel free to do so.

Agencies and organizations include:

Crossroads Counseling Center                           Harrisonburg League of Therapists

Center for Marriage and Family Counseling        Healthy Community Council

McNulty Center                                                 Department of Social Services

Boys and Girls Club                                           Harrisonburg City Schools

Rockingham County Schools                              Collins Center

Hispanic Ministry of Blessed Sacrament Church  FAPT/CPMT members

New Bridges Immigrant Resource Center            Health Department

Harrisonburg/Rockingham Free Clinic                 Community Health Center

JMU – Department of Graduate Psychology       JMU – IIHHS

JMU – Department of Social Work                    EMU – Department of Counseling

The Collaborative will be co-facilitated by Greg Czyszczon, Ed.S., LPC, of Crossroads Counseling Center and Jennifer Henkel, LCSW, of the Harrisonburg League of Therapists. Please indicate your interest with a phone call or a return email to Greg or Jennifer. We hope that you will join us for this important work.

HLT will host our first meeting on January 27, 2011 at 9:30 AM

312 South Main Street, Harrisonburg

Jennifer Henkel, LCSW                                             Greg Czyszczon, Ed.S., LPC

Harrisonburg League of Therapists                             Crossroads Counseling Center

jennifer.henkel@leagueoftherapists.com                      gczyszczon@csv-inc.com

437-1605                                                                  801-0885