I would like to enlist your support and attempt to identify 4 Consumers who will represent the counties designated below. These configurations do not correspond to Area Mental Health Programs because of the service delivery model employed by the Agency. (Please note that A Center for Developing Families, Inc. is North Carolina’s first and only nonprofit service organization for Persons with Mental Illness that has a completely Consumer-Board composition). This non-profit was founded July 15, 1992, and has been in inactive status since 1996. In response to the emerging climate of change stipulated by HB-381, A Center for Developing Families, Inc. is positioned to serve consumers in 32 counties, covering 19 Area Mental Health Programs.

The services provided will be adopted, and clinically guided by (1) the Research, Training and Development Departments of Boston University, Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation, and (2)the Research, Training, and Development Departments of the University of Iowa, National Resource Center on Family-Based Services. The Agency seeks membership in the NC Center for Nonprofits, the International Association of Psychosocial Rehabilitation Services, the NC Association of Psychosocial Rehabilitation Services, Accreditation status with the NC Council of Community programs, and the National Family-Based Services Association. The Agency is already a member of the NC Community Support Providers Council.

Primary Services provided include:

(1) Outpatient Clinics

(2)Total Psychosocial Rehabilitation Services Spectrum: Strengths-Based Model

(3)In-Home Family and Individual Services: Individual & Family Strengths-Based Models (Resilience and Promotion of maximal, optimal independence)

(4)Group Homes comprised of 4 inhabitants each

(5)Day Club and Recreational Centers serving breakfast and lunch

Specialty Services provided include:

(1) Program for Head or Brain-Injured Patients

(2) Teens in Transition Program, Ages 17 to 21

(3) Consumer to Consumer Partner Training Program— The Program aims, after the budget provides for all expenses and emergency funds are secured for operations, scholarships to be available to Consumers to return to schools and universities. These Consumers will hopefully be trained as Social Workers, Nurses, Nursing Assistants, and other Qualified Mental Health Professionals who can in turn become providers of services to other Consumers.

(4) Emergency funds for persons who “fall through the cracks” in the system and are in need of food, clothing, and shelter.

(5) Training provided by the Executive Director for other nonprofits in the modalities specified above. Certification is sought with Continuing Education Units through the North Carolina AHEC systems for all participants.

Please help Consumers to organize themselves to represent the following combinations of Counties in NC:

(1)Guilford and Forsyth.

(2) New Hanover and Brunswick.

(3) Buncombe, Haywood, Henderson, McDowell, Madison, Polk, Rutherford, Transylvania, and Yancey.

(4) Alamance, Chatham, Lee, and Randolph.

(5) Cumberland, Harnett, and Johnston.

(6) Vance, Warren, Granville, and Franklin.

(7) Duplin, Sampson, and Wayne.

(8) Orange, Durham, and Wake.

(9) Nash and Wilson.