Mental Health Association in New York State, Inc.
(Publication Archives)

Community Connections, Fall 2002

PWPD Task Forces Around the State
By Renée G. Benson, CSW, Managing Director, MHANYS

The Parents With Psychiatric Disabilities (PWPD) project aims to heighten awareness and improve community responsiveness for parents and their children by encouraging supportive resources, family support networks, programs, and treatments to improve the situations for families. This is a statewide initiative and is being achieved through the development of six regional task forces.

The regional task forces are taking on the responsibility of raising a singular clear voice to raise awareness and improve conditions for parents who have a psychiatric disability. Each task force is actively seeking new members parents and providers are welcome. Please see the contact list to the right to call the region in your area.

Each region is still in its early development stage, and each region is moving in a different direction. At the writing of this article two task forces have begun admirable projects. The Northern Hudson Region is developing a curriculum to provide training for local service providers and for the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) volunteers in their regions. When this task is completed they will move on to other items on their to-do list.

The North Western Region, in collaboration with perinatal providers, is gathering information to produce a resource manual for distribution to providers and consumers sharing information on signs, symptoms, resources and consumer perspectives on the issue of depression before, during and after pregnancy. Additionally, they are working to design a website on this same issue and host informational meetings to heighten awareness and perhaps use this knowledge to leverage additional funding to expand services.

A third region, the Southern Hudson Region, is hosting informational meetings every other month, sharing program ideas that are working within the region. The reason for this is so others may build on those ideas or replicate models, and replicating models does happen successfully. The Invisible Children's Project of MHA in Orange County was successfully replicated by Rehabilitation Support Services in Sullivan County. They have already begun work with families, and the MHA of the Southern Tier is also replicating it and is currently in the early stages of building community consensus. Congratulations to both of these projects!

The Northern Central Region is at the formative stage of gathering materials and staging a visioning/prioritization day, which is set for the end of August. This is also a pivotal time for the South Central and South Western Regions as they prepare for their first meetings. If you are interested in this subject join the local regions and add your voice and your energy to this vital project.

Check out our website at http://www.mhanys.org/pwpd/pwpd_taskreg.htm for task force in your region. View the PowerPoint presentation on the front page of the website to learn more about the strengths and challenges faced by families, find out what you can do.

posted 9/17/02