A new project designed to increase civic participation for clients has begun at Connecticut Mental Health Center (CMHC).
The CMHC Citizenship Project, a pilot program, will implement citizenship-oriented clinical care at CMHC, expand community connections for clients, and develop a manual for use in implementing citizenship programs at other sites in Connecticut. Michael Rowe, PhD, a sociologist who co-directs the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, is leading the project, a culmination of his 15 years of research on full and meaningful citizenship for people with behavioral health disorders.
The CT Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) with support from the legislature, has funded this initiative, which it hopes will deepen the quality and scope of services throughout the State of Connecticut.
On July 11, 2013, a kick-off event at CMHC brought people together to learn about and celebrate the Citizenship Project. DMHAS Deputy Commissioner Paul Dileo spoke to an audience of over fifty people to express his support and enthusiasm.
"The progress of the Citizenship Project has been exciting to watch," DiLeo said. "As the program grows, it continues to expand our understanding of the evolution of a recovery system of care."
Dr. Michael Rowe is a leading scholar in the area of citizenship. Working with teams of collaborators, including people in the behavioral health and criminal justice systems and fellow scholars at Yale and beyond, he has developed a theoretical model that identifies the "5R’s of citizenship": rights, responsibilities, roles, resources, and relationships. Last year, Dr. Rowe won the Yale School of Medicine’s Clinical Innovations in Psychiatry Award for his work. The CMHC Citizenship Project will build on and take to scale this research.
"A project like this is exactly what we should be doing," said Michael J. Sernyak, MD, CEO of CMHC, at the opening event. "We talk about being a community mental health center – this program is a true community program."
Dr. Rowe says that over the years, his work has taught him that people with severe mental illness can take on valued roles in their communities and accomplish many things, for the benefit of themselves and others.
Since 2001, the “Citizens’ Project,” originally a jail diversion program and now based at the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, has been running a program based on the “5 R’s” of citizenship. At the opening event at CMHC, two Citizens' Project participants, graduate Michael Parrish and current student Mark DeBrady, spoke of their experience in that program.
"Someone in Citizens’ told me I could make it," said Parrish. "I thank God for that. I am clean and on the right path. This program is one of the best programs I have ever been to. It taught me how to get my life together."
"With mental health, you need more than the medicine," said DeBrady. "You need a place to go – you need a community…The biggest thing Citizens’ does is get people involved in a small community at first. You learn to love those people and feel for them. Then you get a feel for that in the larger community."
Through the Citizenship Project, the spirit of community will grow and flourish throughout CMHC, which serves over 5,000 patients each year in the Greater New Haven region.