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National Empowerment Center

Mission: To carry a message of recovery, empowerment, hope and healing to people who have been labeled with mental illness.


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  • This is New!Voices of Hope and Recovery: Our Stories, Our Lives

    New CD Series

    These stories - honest, gut-wrenching and triumphant - are told by people who, through darkness, have found wellness and healing, meaning and purpose.

    CLICK TO VIEW OR ORDER

  • PACE: A Recovery Guide

    How Personal Assistance in Community Existence (PACE) facilitates people's recovery from "mental illness"

    CLICK TO ORDER

    Also available as a free pdf download:
    Guide in English (7395KB, 36 pages) Guide in Spanish (1681KB, 35 pages) Guide in Japanese (4608 KB, 29 pages) Guide in Icelandic (944KB, 30 pages)

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Proud Member of Grassroots.org

"We envision a future when everyone
with a mental illness will recover"

-- New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, 2003 --


Judi Chamberlin passed away on Saturday, January 16th

Judi ChamberlilnJudi changed many lives throughout the world with her passionate speaking and writing to stand up for the rights of people who have been labeled with mental illness. We will miss her. We feel blessed to have known and worked with Judi. [Visit Judi's page]

Alternatives 2009 Health and Wellness Screening Report Available

Currently, Americans who have major mental illnesses die an average of twenty-five 25 years earlier than the general population (NASMHPD, 2006 and other sources). They experience the largest health disparity in the United States. [Read more...] [Click here to read the full report (PDF, 56KB, 6 pages)]

"This Emotional Life" Explores Resilience and Happiness

This 3-part PBS series, premiering January 4, opens a window into real lives, exploring ways to improve our social relationships, cope with emotional issues, and become more positive, resilient individuals. Hosted by Daniel Gilbert, Harvard psychologist and best-selling author of Stumbling on Happiness. Partners and contributors include the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA); Blue Star Families; the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance; Mental Health America; Mayo Clinic; the National Alliance on Mental Illness; and University of Phoenix. Visit www.pbs.org/thisemotionallife to watch previews and learn more.

Health Care Reform: Challenges and Opportunities for Behavioral Health Care Reform

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter and Daniel Fisher

Daniel Fisher and former First Lady Rosalynn Carter at the
25th Annual Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy
held at The Carter Center in Atlanta Nov. 5-6, 2009.

More than 150 mental health advocates, policy-makers, practitioners, educators, and researchers convened at the symposium to discuss “Health Care Reform: Challenges and Opportunities for Behavioral Health Care Reform.” Dr. Fisher presented on the topic of comparative effectiveness research in mental health. He drew on personal lived experience as well as research carried out at the NEC. He pointed out the importance of integrating persons' lived experience into any research into recovery and wellbeing. He emphasized that participatory, qualitative, action research is best suited to gathering evidence as to the most effective means of assisting people to recover. For more information on the symposium, please visit www.cartercenter.org. [Click here to watch the video] [Click here to read more on comparative effective research in mental health]

New Report Surveys Consumer-Led Evaluation Teams

Consumer-run evaluation is essential to systems transformation; yet there is a lack of information out there about how to do it effectively. This new report, developed for NEC by Consumer Quality Initiatives, Inc. (CQI), surveys several existing consumer-led evaluation teams in the US, identifies best practices in consumer-run evaluation and provides recommendations for creating and sustaining a consumer-led evaluation team. Click here to read the full report (PDF, 221KB, 22 pages)


Anniversary of the Americans
With Disabilities Act, 2009

NEC Executive Director Daniel Fisher Attends Presidential Signing of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Commemoration of the 19th Anniversary of the ADA

NEC Executive Director Daniel Fisher Attends Presidential Signing of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Commemoration of the 19th Anniversary of the ADA

On behalf of NEC, I want to congratulate the White House on its terrific celebration of the signing of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. It was exciting to see the Obama administration fulfill its campaign promise to join the international community in this important area. President Obama's words regarding President Roosevelt were insightful. He first said that FDR had done so much despite his disability and added that perhaps he was able to do so much because of his disability. As a person who has recovered from schizophrenia, become a psychiatrist, and was a member of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health I feel, similarly, that my disability has challenged me and many of my peers to find a deeper purpose in life. Dan Fisher

To watch the remarks made by President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, click here

To read the official Proclamation signed by President Obama, click here

July 30, 2009: The US Ambassador to the UN officially signs the UN Disabilities Pact


NEW AT THE NEC WEBSITE:

"Engaged, Employed and Wrestling With Mental Illness"

Inspiring recovery story of Anthony Sgarlato. "When he was in his 40s, he started volunteering as a peer counselor at Baltic Street A.E.H., a nonprofit group in Brooklyn that provides services to clients with mental illness. It was a perfect match: He helped men and women whose battles he knew well to get benefits or to find housing. He embraced the role of advocate, traveling several times to Albany to lobby lawmakers for greater benefits for mentally ill people. Mr. Sgarlato worked his way up, and now is the director of self-help and advocacy at the center." [Click here to read the full text of the N.Y. Times article]

Free Podcasts and Slides from Self-Determination Summit Available

Learn more about self-determination in a time of economic uncertainty, with an emphasis on person-directed recovery, peer-run services, economic security, and transparency and accountability in behavioral health care. Featuring presentations from Debbie Whittle, NEC TAC Director and NEC Executive Director Daniel Fisher. To access the podcasts and slide presentations, click here.

Comparative-Effectiveness Advocates Vow Better Outcomes Will Follow

The additional research on treatment options will not be able to meet its stated aim of improving mental health care treatment outcomes, however, unless it includes a range of options, maintain some mental health experts. For psychiatrist Daniel Fisher, M.D., Ph.D., those options should include patient-centered care and the use of “patient peers” in treatment. [Click here to read the article]

Mental health: Out of the cuckoo's nest

Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cukoo's NestA radical US advocate for psychiatric patients' rights brings to the UK his first-hand message that a diagnosis of mental illness is not a life sentence "Dan Fisher, a prominent psychiatrist who is advising the Obama administration on mental health issues, has been on a personal mission for two decades to change the way wider society understands and reacts to mental illness. An advocate of the "recovery model" – which posits that a diagnosis of mental illness is not for life, and that people can recover completely – Fisher is an outspoken and controversial figure in the US, campaigning vigorously for the rights of people diagnosed with a mental illness." [Click to read the full article]

National Mental Health Advocates Join Hogg Foundation's Advisory Council

AUSTIN, Texas Renowned mental health experts and consumer advocates Dr. Daniel Fisher and LaVerne Miller, Esq., have been appointed to the National Advisory Council of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health.

The 10-member council advises foundation staff on strategic direction and potential funding initiatives. Council members have Texas-based or national expertise in mental health, consumer advocacy, philanthropy and other fields related to the foundation's mission of promoting the mental health of all Texans. [Read More...]

Intervoice Letter to Parents of Children who Hear Voices

Open letter to Oprah Winfrey in response to her program about “The 7-Year-Old Schizophrenic”

Dear Oprah

We are writing this letter in response to your program about “The 7-Year-Old Schizophrenic”. This concerned Jani, a child who hears voices, and was broadcast on the 6th October 2009.

We do so in the hope we can provide a more hopeful and positive alternative to the generally pessimistic picture offered by the members of the mental health community featured in the program, and in the accompanying article on your website. [Read more...]

Are you Depressed, or Just Human? By Dr. Andrew Weil

Many cultures find the American insistence on constant cheerfulness and pasted-on smiles disturbing and unnatural. Occasional, situational sadness is not pathology -- it is part and parcel of the human condition, and may offer an impetus to explore a new, more fulfilling path. Read more at: www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-weil-md/are-you-depressed-or-just_b_307734.html 

Judge in NYC rules that 4300 mental health consumers are unduly segregated in adult psychiatric homes

New York State discriminated against thousands of mentally ill people in New York City by leaving them in privately run adult homes, which effectively replaced state-run psychiatric hospitals more than a generation ago but turned out to be little more than institutions themselves, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday. [Click to read full article]

New Review of 20 studies shows that being labeled with mental illness does not increase the risk of violence

Click to view - Schizophrenia and Violence: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis [PDF, 15 Pages, 944KB]

Psychiatric peer review touted: Care termed a low-cost, effective alternative

People with psychiatric illness get better care from other people with a psychiatric history than from traditional doctors and psychologists in a traditional medical setting, according to Daniel B. Fisher. [Click to read full article]

Consumer-Directed Medicaid Services more Effective than Professionally-Directed Services

The above SAMHSA funded study by Ce Shen, Ph.D. and others published in the November 2008 Psychiatric Services found that self-directed care works well for persons with mental illnesses. [Read more...]

New research study finds unlocked, mental health consumer-managed, crisis residential program produce better results than locked, inpatient psychiatric facilities

For adults with severe psychiatric problems, consumer-managed residential programs may be the way to go, a new study suggests.

Title of Study: A Randomized Trial of a Mental Health Consumer-Managed Alternative to Civil Commitment for Acute Psychiatric Crisis. [Click for more]

Dan Fisher's Presentations on Recovery

How Consumers STEP UP to Design a Truly Recovery-based Mental Health System 

Click to view Dan Fisher's article published in National Council Magazine

Reducing Seclusion and Restraint:

Reducing the use of seclusion and restraint: A NASMHPD priority

Click to view a Risk Management Guide (pdf, 35 pages, 246KB)


The National Empowerment Center is funded in part by:

SAMHSA Logo - Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services AdministrationU.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Center for Mental Health Services
www.samhsa.gov

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Recent Evidence and Strategies for Recovery

Recovery from Severe Mental Illnesses: Research Evidence and Implications for Practice (Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation) Volume 1, Volume 2

In the Driver's Seat: Guide to Self-Direction in Mental Health

The Florida Self-Directed Care Program - A Practical Path to Self-Determination (PDF 181KB - 10 pages)

The Contribution of Self-Direction to Improving the Quality of Mental Health Services

Inclusive Livable Communities for People with Psychiatric Disabilities - NCD Report

Outcome of community-based rehabilitation program for people with mental illness who are considered difficult to treat. (pdf)

ROSI and other recovery measures

Consumer-Directed Transformation to a Recovery-Based Mental Health System (pdf)

Self-Direction: Consumer Choice in Action (pdf)

Emerging evidence base for Consumer Operated Services (COSP)

Evidence That People Recover in Published Research and Other Articles

NEC is working with four consumer groups in a Recovery Consortium

Voices of Transformation: Developing Recovery-Based Statewide Consumer/Survivor Organizations (pdf 2MB - 104 pages)


NEC's proposed characteristics of a person who has recovered from mental illness


Additional articles that you may find useful:

People can recover from mental illness

Reclaiming your power during medication
appointments with your psychiatrist

Escuchando voces que deprimen: Recursos y estrategia para ayudarse así mismo

See all our Articles