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Mental Health
Erie DAWN
The Mental Health Association's Consumer/Family Satisfaction Team (CFST) is helping our community in more ways than one.
The 8 member team surveys the clients of 30 Erie County agencies. Those agencies help people with mental health and drug and alcohol problems. The team members question 3,000 people a year to find out how they feel about the treatment they get.
The information goes back to the agencies for leaders to improve programs if needed.
Bill Grove, the CEO of the Mental Health Association explained, "They're giving them input that allows those services then to change and become more consumer friendly. Certainly many of the providers take this information very seriously and look for getting it so they can do just that. "
The job is personal for most of the workers. The team is made up of family members of children who've received mental health services or the employees themselves have been treated.
To learn more about CFST, call (814) 452-4462. Their website is: www.mhanp.org The Mental Health Association is located at 1101 Peach St., Erie, PA. -
Mental Health Association of Northwest PA
So you've always wanted to launch your own business......
Well, believe it or not, the current economic recession is proving to be an opportune time to start realizing that long-deferred dream. While it may go against the conventional logic of being safe and conservative in the downturn, seasoned business watchers often see more start-ups in recessions. For one thing, some of the people laid off end up starting new businesses instead of finding new jobs. For others, the recession can be a time to capture more market share by being aggressive while other businesses are laying low in the storm.
All of these trends are ringing true in the nonprofit sector. Applications to the Internal Revenue Service to start new nonprofits are up in 2009 compared to 2008. As traditional public revenue sources are being pared back, more organizations are venturing into social enterprise – applying a product or skill set they have to a new market or a new set of consumers to open up new revenue streams. Over the last 20 years, nonprofits overall have increased their “social enterprise” revenue by an average of almost 10% annually, according to figures cited by the Social Enterprise Alliance.
The gains can be particularly dramatic with some of the traditionally hardest-to-employ populations. The Mental Health Association of Northwest PA offers a variety of support services that assist with the independence and employability of behavioral health consumers, many of whom are still actively struggling with mental illness, the addictions, or both. Over the past decade, a movement to add the consumer voice and perspective to mental health services has grown tremendously, and research has shown that case management, crisis teams, and drop-in services staffed by consumers all have strong results. While these services are present in Erie, the MHA has gone even further by developing a Consumer/Family Satisfaction Team staffed by consumers to track satisfaction with services for insurers and managed care companies. This enterprise has led to current efforts to develop new business opportunities for consumers who, like so many others around the country, sense that this may be the time to start pursuing their dream. For more information, please contact the Mental Health Association of Northwest PA at (814) 452-4462 or info@mhanp.org .