Consumer Organization and Networking Technical Assistance Center

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Project Approach/Plans

Consumer Organization & Networking Technical Assistance Center (CONTAC)

The West Virginia Mental Health Consumers Association, Incorporated [also known as WVMHCA], is a not-for-profit service agency created to organize a mental health consumer network throughout the State of West Virginia;

To provide a forum for exchanging information to end stigma in the field of mental illness;

To achieve the best possible community mental health system for all citizens based upon our unique mental health consumer experience and perspective;

To provide primary consumer input into the affairs of all mental health providers;

To provide a means to help provide empowering support to all consumers in our search for appropriate health care, employment, housing, and other supports;

To provide a meaningful voice to consumers so to communicate our needs on issues directly impacting our lives;

To ensure that these concerns are heard and not discounted through consumer and public education and advocacy so as to eliminate discrimination and stigma;

To provide emotional support to and from consumers;

To research consumer empowerment, satisfaction and quality of life issues;

And to demand that all consumers are treated with the dignity and humanity due to all human beings.

Mission

We believe that all people have the right to adequate housing, food, clothing, education, healthcare and employment. These rights must be guaranteed to all human beings irrespective of race, class, color, gender, sexual identity, age, religion creed, national origin, disability or ability to pay. We also believe that we must act justly on behalf of people that have, or have had a mental or emotional illness and insure the right and support to seek recovery from these illnesses.

Having worked diligently and successfully in the establishment of a model statewide network, WVMHCA has the capacity to share the experience of consumer solidarity and collaborative partnerships with consumers, consumer operations, and other peer run service operations throughout the United States. WVMHCA is operated and governed by and for consumers. WVMHCA-CONTAC is comprised of employees, specialized groups and advisory councils that consists of approximately 90% consumers. Based partly on success and partly on vision, we believe that the our goals, objectives and activities are consistent with the goals described in the orginal RFA for a National Technical Assistance Center. The vision, mission and values that WVMHCA-CONTAC operates by are congruent with the efforts of the requested project, and will, in turn, provide core constructs for providing consumer based programming with others throughout the nation. An array of diverse, unique and exemplary non-traditional services and opportunities has been established.

The West Virginia Mental Health Consumers Association /Consumer Organization & Networking Technical Assistance Center is dedicated to the empowerment, education, and rights protection of individuals with psychiatric disabilities. Not only is the organization committed to providing direct service to the individual, through assessment, linking, crisis management, transportation, skill teaching, education, planning advocacy, monitoring and employment development, but we are equally committed to the class of individuals whom we represent. For persons with psychiatric disabilities, empowerment, community service and rights promotion have been actualized by outreach initiatives, such as media coverage, quarterly newsletters, consumer satisfaction surveys and thousands of man-hours of site visitation.

As an innovative and progressive organization we have realized that to be successful in our endeavors we must work diligently to define, assess, and redefine our goals, objectives and programming through internal and external development so that we may serve more efficiently both the individual and class. These endeavors have resulted in more than a $100,000 of donated time, space, and support from consumer volunteers, Comprehensive Mental Health Centers, and other organizations and individuals. In addition, we have collaborated with other groups on several goal-oriented projects that should help ensure a more productive and efficient use of all of our resources. In the past year our offices throughout the state have worked with more than 300 businesses, organizations, government entities, and academic facilities.

Our direct services, media coverage, and resource linkage have taken the message of West Virginia’s consumers of behavioral health services to the entire population of the state at a cost of less than seven cents per person per year. This exposure has proven to be of monumental value in contributing to consumer empowerment, recovery and success in West Virginia.

WVMHCA has developed strategies, which indicate very positive outcomes in peer support, empowerment training and non-traditional service delivery. These strategies include enhanced peer support planning and implementation and a lead roll in the West Virginia Leadership Academy for Consumers and Family members. Of approximately 230 Leadership Academy graduates nearly 40% have remained active in the statewide consumer network. Linkages, by way of teleconferencing, training seminars, Mental Health Planning Council participation, and many other activities are coordinated, maintained, and promoted. West Virginia consumers are linked via email and is accessible to interested consumers at eight sites throughout West Virginia where they may also request information and assistance.

CONTAC goals are realistic because the technology, practice and experience are already in place and fit comfortably within the parameters of the current program. This project includes electronic technology, manpower, organizational skills, technical assistance, education, representation, etc. WVMHCA staff has provided technical assistance to other organizations in New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Virginia, South Carolina and has been working with other consumer groups at the national level since its formation in 1987. CONTAC  will deliver technical assistance throughout the United States through the use of multiple interventions, including: establishing points of entry for consumers into active consumer activities; helping consumer groups develop organizational infrastructures; assisting consumer organizations with coordinating state-wide networks (that have the potential to extend into a national consumer network); and, establishing a national Web site, which will include information about all active consumer organizations, an extended data base of publications and online moderated peer support groups via chat areas.

WVMHCA has experienced successful growth by realizing the importance of grassroots planning and activism, the importance of maintaining the autonomy of such grassroots efforts, the need for organizational and management skills, and the necessity of outcome measurements. The project approach is expected to have a substantial positive impact on consumers. The consumer culture is a familiar one and a framework for organization is already in place that can be replicated throughout the United States. It is imperative to the success of consumer programs that participants have ownership of their particular programs. Resources and supports to promote self-regulation, accountability and professionalism are available to others. Ownership is more likely to take place with participants because this is a grassroots oriented project.

One of the foremost problems, which CONTAC has recognized, is the lack of consumer group involvement in areas West of the Mississippi River. An exhaustive effort was made to partner with a western consumer group prior to the grant deadline but due to time constraints a partner organization has not yet been found. However, CONTAC is committed to pursuing this notion during the first year of grant funding. CONTAC will identify a western consumer organization that will be willing to work with the proposd project. CONTAC will then negotiate specific roles, provide intensive training in regard to this project plan and dedicate a budget line to the other organization by the end of the first funding year.

Another anticipated problem that may be encountered involves the timeliness of reaching interested organizations with  hands-on technical assistance. This will be addressed through early marketing strategies and site visits providing technical assistance to facilities and organizations. CONTAC has devised a preliminary plan for providing six full scholarships per year for Leadership Academy/Organizational Development training teams to provide services in six states. Six 50% scholarships will be granted per year for Leadership Academy/Organizational Development training teams to provide services in six additional states. Six site visits by experienced, qualified staff are earmarked for peer-support and/or organizational structure.

A third problem might involve the lack of technical and computer skills within the individual state sites. This will be addressed by purchasing training packages with the equipment purchase and providing hands-on orientation to the technology. With formal training and experience, interested consumers will be given an opportunity to develop competency skills so that they may pass what they have learned on to others.

A fourth obstacle might be limits in the initial identification of consumer groups nationwide. This will be addressed through collaboration with organizations such as the Center for Mental Health Services, the National Mental Health Association, Technical Assistance centers, and others with similar interests. Success will come through linking, packaging and marketing.

Another obstacle might be the possible misassessment of the genuine needs of consumer organizations throughout the United States. In order to help address this issue, one of the tasks of the Technical Assistant Group (TAG) for Evaluation and Outcome is to help consumers develop a needs assessment. The finished instrument will be ready for implementation by the end of the first funding year. This technical assistance team is made up of professional researchers and headed by consumer-researcher Dr. Jean Campbell.

With the onset of managed care, system change and innovative consumer programming, several barriers have been identified that may prohibit peer providers from acquiring a rightful place in the mental health system of next century. Organizational leadership and structures, representative membership, outcome orientation and accountability, professionalism and education are needed to help overcome the barriers that may prevent the survival of consumer-run programs. CONTAC offers comprehensive education and hands-on experience to consumers who are involved in, desire to be involved with or who have been involved with self-help programs.  People who have experienced mental illness are responsible for the operation of CONTAC. The primary objective is to provide grass roots technical assistance to:

• identify and exemplify points of entry for peers in order to establish local, state and national associations, organizations or groups;
• provide the means for existing peer-run programs to become involved at a the state level, with a long-range goal of becoming involved in a nationwide network of people who share similar visions, missions and values;
• provide self-advocacy and political empowerment skill teaching to those persons interested in learning how to make a difference for themselves and others in a given community through utilizing the Leadership Academy technology;
• help establish credible non-profit corporations for statewide networks; and
• establish a nationwide database for the Technical Assistance program and provide all participants, or potential participants, access to CONTAC Web Pages, infosharing conferencing and listservs.

The overall intent is to help consumer operations unite for the benefit of all, through the provision of:

• appropriate outcome satisfaction and service data;
• access to other consumer organizations through the Internet, video conferencing with CONTAC, newsletters, direct mail and other media;
• appropriate hardware, software and skill teaching in order to become linked to the above resources;
• skill teaching and support for empowerment and professionalism;
• organizational development assistance; and
• advocacy for specific roles in Managed Care such as: teaching skills that will provide empowered consumer representation in the Managed Care environment and defining a role for non-traditional services in such a way that they can be included as a key part of the service delivery system.