Our Next Quartlery meeting will be held on Thursday, June 21, 2007 at 6pm

in Bellevue Hospital Center, 462 First Avenue.
Presenter: Clinton Wright, Columbia University.
Oeufs d'oeuvres and beverages will be served.
R.S.V.P. Will be required.
More information to follow

DIVERSITY TRAINING FOR CLASSROOM TEACHING: A MANUAL FOR STUDENTS AND EDUCATORS.

Authored by long standing AHMHP Member Caroline S Clauss-Ehlers and published by Springer, has just been released. This book is a resource guide geared to help educators create classroom communities that respond to diversity. While textbooks that highlight these issues do exist, missing from current diversity education literature is a how-to tool kit designed to provide educators with activities, reflective scenarios, resources, and reference lists. The learning activities presented in this volume seek to fill this current gap in the literature. They define terminology, provide activities to raise self-awareness, include newspaper articles that illustrate the relevance of concepts, and allow for an overall dialogue about diverse issues. For more information click here.

NEW YORK ASSOCIATION OF PSYCHIATRIC REHABILITATION SERVICES (NYAPRS)
24th Annual Conference: From Promise to Practice: Sharing the Tools for Transformation, September 27 - 29, 2006.

Over the past few years, the NYAPRS Annual Conference has grown in size and scope to become one of the nation's premier educational and inspirational opportunities to celebrate advances in promoting the recovery, rehabilitation and rights of people with psychiatric disabilities. See for additional information.

TASKFORCE TO PRESERVE ACCESS TO BEHAVIORAL HEALTH SERVICES.

Because of its concern that the recommendations of the NYS Commission on Health Care Facilities for the 21st Century could inadvertently result in the loss of essential mental health and substance abuse services, The Center for Policy and Advocacy of the Mental Health Associations of NYC and Westchester has convened a Taskforce to insure that critical services are protected. The taskforce consists of over 29 umbrella organizations representing providers, professionals, families, consumers, and counties. In 2005, the Governor, with the support of the New York State Legislature, established the Commission. The Governor has characterized its goal as “rightsizing” the hospital and nursing home systems. General hospitals provide inpatient and outpatient psychiatric services to tens of thousands of New Yord run close to full capacity. Hospital closures that may make sense from the standpoint of the underutilization of medical services could result in a disastrous loss of psychiatric services if the Commission neglects to develop plans for preserving them.

The new Taskforce is funded with a grant from the New York Community Trust. Its goal is to educate the public and the Commission on the importance of general hospitals to the public mental health system and advocate for the State to develop plans to preserve essential behavioral health services or institute viable alternatives. Its goal is not to oppose all proposed hospital closures. Nor is it to preserve current hospital-based resources unchanged. The goal is to assure that needed behavioral health services are not lost as the Commission decides which hospitals and nursing homes will be closed. The taskforce is chaired by Michael Friedman, Director of the Center for Policy and Advocacy. This project is directed by Gary Weiskopf, former Director of the New York State Conference of Local Mental Hygiene Directors. More information on this project is available at www.mhawestchester.org/advocates/bhstaskforce.asp. You can reach Michael Friedman at (212) 614-5753 or center@mhaofnyc.org and Gary Weiskopf at (518) 339-6990 or gweiskopf@verizon.net.

Attached is the 2005 version of NAMI's Multicultural Partner Coalition Newsletter where AHMHP is acknowledged as a new partner on two pages, and there is a full page article on MH Underserved Populations by former AHMHP president. Dr. Abad.

  MPC Newsletter April 2005

You can also read this and past editions of the newsletter online at www.nami.org
(under Multicultural Action Center).

The first issue of Salud Mental has been published and is on a new website. Click here www.mhnews-latino.org and go to page 23 for an article on AHMHP.This 48 page inaugural issue is a milestone in a project that holds great promise as a vital new resource for the Latino community and for the mental health providers that deliver services to this community. www.mhnews-latino.org