Gary Shaheen, BBI Managing Director for Program Development, to participate in a dialogue meeting between mental health consumers and experts on employment, to be held at the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) in Bethesda, Maryland on September 23-24, 2008. Specifically, the dialogue will include 20 participants consisting of mental health consumers, employers, providers, policymakers, researchers, and administrators.
Beginning in 1997, CMHS, part of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has sponsored a series of 11/2-day dialogues that offer mental health consumers and representatives from other groups an opportunity to improve communication and build partnerships to help transform mental health services and promote recovery.
The dialogue format will provide a level playing field for 20 participants to freely exchange experiences, ideas, knowledge, and recommendations. Additionally, the meeting will aim to improve communication and build partnerships to improve mental health services and foster recovery. Specifically, meeting participants will be asked to identify individual and systemic barriers in regard to the supply and demand side of employment and develop recommendations to address them.
These meetings have led to concrete outcomes, including advances in networking, training and technical assistance, and valuable recommendations for CMHS and the field. Also, these deliberations have resulted in publications. One example is Building Bridges: Members of Faith-Based and Community Organizations in Dialogue (Web site: mentalhealth.samhsa.gov/publications/allpubs/SMA04-3868/DialogueThemesAndFindings.asp).
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