Human Intervention

Word choices - consumer and stigma

2011-11-23T02:56:00.000-05:00

I was surprised when I reread some old comments of mine on NAMI discussion boards.

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Posted By pkomarek On 12/22/06 05:41 AM

One of NAMI's flaws is its sometime fixation on whether a person has an illness or instead has a family member with an illness. This is stigmatizing in a very pernicious way because it says we at NAMI can make choices based on a person's medical condition when no one else can.

To be truly inclusive, NAMI needs to declare this issue "out of bounds." We must all work to eliminate these factions, not rename them.

For the most part, distinctions based on minority group membership are disappearing from civil discourse. We don't use terms like White fire fighter, African-American engineer, or Catholic customer service representative very often. It's not relevant. In civil discourse, we have simply moved beyond this.

NAMI should move beyond this too. We are all community members. We have the education we have, the challenges we individually face, the talents we have individually to contribute. We each have a unique story based on personal experience and the experience of the persons in our lives.

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Suggestion Box > The term "consumer"
The term "consumer"
Posted By pkomarek On 12/11/06 04:11 PM

After many years working with people with disabilities both within and outside the NAMI community, I firmly believe that, for the most part, people should give up trying to invent or embrace euphemisms for conditions that are stigmatizing.

Consumer has come to be as stigmatizing as crazy or patient or mental. Whatever new word comes into practice will become stigmatizing over time.

For people who want to organize on the basis of their shared condition, I suggest using the same sort of labels that persons free of medical problems use. These include "citizen" or "neighborhood study group" or "book club."

The more radical groups of persons with disabilities push the stigmatizing labels back at the "normals" - These are the groups that proclaim themselves cripples or crazy or mad. This is a matter of preference.

So let's support the anti-stigma work, but let's also refuse to accept stigmatizing labels imposed by others or by ourselves.

Let's try these on for size: Persons seeking treatment Persons in recovery Persons with an illness Persons receiving treatment Community member Friend

I've tried to follow my own advice in my book Defying Mental Illness.

--pk---

My new book - DEFYING MENTAL ILLNESS

2011-11-05T18:33:00.000-04:00

Defying Mental Illness is available now from a variety of online booksellers.

The e-book version is available on Smashwords at https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/91891

Smashwords publishes in a variety of ebook formats and distributes to Barnes & Noble, Apple, Sony, Kobo and other e-reader stores. You can download a pdf sample of the book from Smashwords.

The print version is available from Createspace at https://www.createspace.com/3697560
Createspace, associated with Amazon, also distributes titles to library and academic markets.

Amazon carries DEFYING MENTAL ILLNESS at this link:
http://www.amazon.com/Defying-Mental-Illness-Community-Resources/dp/1466382090

Amazon also has a Kindle Edition at this link
http://www.amazon.com/Defying-Mental-Illness-Community-ebook/dp/B005X00K5W

--pk---

Judge Nadine Allen Concert Pix Featuring Judge Allen, Bootsy Collins, Mrs. Collins and the Supreme Courtettes

2010-09-01T15:03:00.002-04:00

Photos by Jenny Edwards. More to come...

Follow this link to contribute to the Keep Judge Allen Campaign.

CPS kids lose skills between 3rd and 5th grade

2010-02-07T11:23:00.000-05:00

We are relatively familiar with the performance of Cincinnati Public Schools on the school and system level. In 2008-09, 3 out of 4 CPS schools failed to meet their adequate yearly progress targets under No Child Left Behind. And 11 of 59 CPS schools have been in No Child Left Behind “improvement status” for five or more years.

What’s new in this report is data that compares the percentage of students who meet state learning standards in third grade with the percentage that meet state learning standards in fifth grade.

This data shows that students in CPS lose ground in these years. The reading achievement rate for third graders in 2006-07 was 60% - but in 2008-09, when these students reached fifth grade, their achievement rate dropped to 47%.

Math performance trends were even worse. The math achievement rate for third graders in 2006-2007 was 71% - but when these students reached fifth grade in 2008-09, their achievement rate dropped to 37%.

Report authors attribute CPS failures to problems in the CPS teacher evaluation system.

Read the full report at http://www.tntp.org/publications/other_publications.html#cincy

Support Your Local Company Town Charity Funding System

2009-08-31T12:36:00.000-04:00

This column has been printed from The Cincinnati Beacon: Where Divergent Views Collide!
The Cincinnati Beacon

Support Your Local Company Town Charity Funding System
Sunday, August 30, 2009

Posted by komarek

I’m not surprised that Cincinnati’s 2009 United Way campaign was designed and delivered by P&G executives. United Way has depended on huge last-minute donations from wealthy givers to “top off” its campaigns for years. Once the economy tanked, those core donors could not close the 2008 campaign money gap. And so we have 2009’s new campaign, built by corporate marketing teams from P&G, combining Sunday coupons, online infomercials, billboards touting the 211 service, cell phone texting, and online appeals from your friends.

I hope the campaign succeeds in motivating millions of consumers to support charity work. But I also want to see some “truth in advertising.”

At a minimum, United Way should disclose the charities it no longer funds.

• ARC Hamilton County (Association of Retarded Citizens)
• Mental Health Association of the Cincinnati Area
• Seven Hills Neighborhood Houses
• Camp Washington Community Board
• CCHMC Postponing Sexual Involvement
• Clermont 20/20
• Fidelity Health Care
• OSU Extension - Brown County
• Winton Place Youth Center
• Social Health Education Inc.
• Renaissance New Richmond
• Comprehensive Counseling Service of Middletown
• Memorial Inc.
• Madisonville Child Care Center

And maybe United Way should disclose that its top two staffers earn a combined total of over half a million dollars. Perhaps even the list of its key donors whose political contributions helped dismantle our public safety net over the course of the past decade.

Cincinnati’s United Way has completed its evolution.

No longer serving needs identified by member charities, United Way is now a vertically-integrated, corporate-controlled charity funding mechanism, designed by experts to deliver workforce development solutions for the corporations that dominate its strategic planning, funding decisions and marketing campaigns.

Successful Online Fundraising

2009-04-14T12:41:00.000-04:00

Here's a non-technical article about successful online fundraising.

http://nonprofit.about.com/od/onlinefundraising/a/givingpages.htm?nl=1

The article describes two successful online fundraising campaigns using Firstgiving, the web service we are using for the NAMI Clermont County fundraising walk.

From the article:

It is person-to-person fundraising - our supporters are making personalized appeals to their social network, and each one of those individuals is leveraging their social network. It's an amazing tool that can really increase donations.

The principles discussed in this article also apply to NAMIWALKS team pages. Every NAMIWalks page has a “share” button at the top that makes it possible to link to Facebook, MySpace or other social networking websites.

Of course you can't neglect the next part of the grassroots fundraising job:

Making the "ask.”

--pk---

Activist's Book Club - Understanding Poverty

2009-04-13T10:55:00.000-04:00

About a year ago I attended a large Cincinnati workshop for nonprofits. I thought the speaker with the best lesson for smaller nonprofits was Ruby K. Payne, author of A Framework for Understanding Poverty.

Though criticised in some quarters for offering stereotypes in place of analysis, I have been struck over the course of the past year by the truth of what she writes, especially with regard to the primacy of relationships among people who live in poverty.

One example. This past weekend I read Gang Leader for a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh. Mr. Venkatesh writes about his graduate-school field work in Chicago's most notoriously crime-ridden public housing projects. He worked closely with gang leaders, tenant association leaders, and youth program coaches in an effort to describe how people living in US inner-city poverty make it through each day.

Time and again, throughout the book, Venkatesh's experiences validate Ms. Payne's concepts.

I can recommend the lessons in these books to help educators and activists design better programs, and increase their effectiveness.

--pk---

Ohio Mental Health Care Rides on the Stimulus Package

2009-02-10T12:01:00.000-05:00

Ohio Mental Health Care Rides on the Stimulus Package

I received this email today. Please support this issue if you can.

--pk---

Dear Mental Health Advocate:
The future of mental health services in Ohio is resting in the hands of the United States Congress. If Congress does not include funding for states in the Federal Stimulus Package currently under consideration, we are told by Governor Strickland that 51,530 fewer Ohioans will receive mental health services, including individuals with bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia and other major disorders.
We need your help. Please contact your representative and Senators Voinovich and Brown in Washington and urge them to support state assistance in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Let them know that without these funds, there are people with severe mental illness in Ohio who will die.
Call the numbers below and ask to be connected to your Congressman and Senators. If you are unsure who your representative is, click here: http://www.oacbha.org/advocacy/congress.html.

U.S. House of Representatives
202-224-3121

U.S. Senate
202-224-3121

Thank you. Your help is critical.

Your friends at the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Ohio (NAMI Ohio)

Cruel budget wipes out medical care for poor

2008-12-05T14:43:00.000-05:00

Cincinnati’s recurring budget nightmare

In December, every other year, the City of Cincinnati’s biennial budget process arrives, a messy political jumble sale of wringing hands, tough rhetoric, competing ideologies and pet programs. Every time it comes around we see at least one new nightmare “loser idea.” In 2004 it was rotating fire station shutdowns. In 2006, Council hammered out a budget compromise involving human services funding in an overnight session– only to disagree, months later, over whether certain Council members were negotiating in good faith, or dreaming, or sleepwalking. In 2008 the issue getting all the press is the so-called “garbage tax.” But the “garbage tax” is a red herring. It conceals the cruelest “loser idea” we have seen so far.

Eliminating healthcare for the poor

This time, the City Manager has eliminated funding for primary health care for our most vulnerable citizens –children and families without health insurance—who receive basic medical care through neighborhood nonprofit health clinics such as the West End Health Center. The 2004 city budget funded this care at close to a million dollars. In 2006 it was cut to $450,000. And now the amount is zero.

Zero dollars for neighborhood health care centers at the worst of all possible economic times. When more and more people are losing health insurance coverage, arriving sicker than ever when they enter the health clinic door.

City-owned clinics cannot meet the demand for the care these neighborhood clinics provide. The Babies Milk Fund closed several pediatric clinics in November because Medicaid reimbursements could not cover operating costs.. Federal programs do not cover the costs neighborhood clinics incur when they serve uninsured persons. Local subsidies, foundation grants and donations keep them afloat –covering, for example, over $10.00 in non-reimbursed cost every time a clinic fills a prescription for an uninsured person – on top of the cost of the medicine itself.

Follow this link to read more.

Cincinnati City Council Finance Committee Testimony Dec. 3, 2008

2008-12-04T08:51:00.000-05:00

Butler County NAMIWALK

2007-11-02T15:20:00.001-04:00

There is a new slideshow featuring over 250 photos from the October 2007 Butler County NAMIWALK at the following link:

Butler County Namiwalk Photos

Layers of Truth

2007-07-09T08:27:00.000-04:00

Here's a guide to one of Cincinnati's oldest tourist attractions.

Operating Support for Non-Profits

2007-07-01T12:41:00.000-04:00

A new study reports that more operational support for nonprofits exists than most managers believe.

Foundations are more likely to support nonprofits' overhead costs than is commonly believed, according to a new study released today by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University and the Aspen Institute's Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy Program, which funded the study.

The study, Paying for Overhead, found that a surprisingly large majority of foundations (69 percent) support nonprofits' overhead expenses, such as rent, administrative staff, accounting systems, or strategic planning. Nearly half make grants for general operating support and almost one-third award unrestricted grants.

Nonetheless, the study of foundations and educational and human services nonprofits found that two-thirds of the nonprofits surveyed said they lack adequate funding for their overhead. And 75 percent reported that they do not rely on foundation funding to pay for such core operations.

“The issue of how much support foundations should provide for nonprofit overhead expenses is one of the most important in the nonprofit field today,” said Alan Abramson, director of the Aspen Institute's Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy Program. “The debate over foundation funding policies is longstanding and heated, and this study sheds important new light on the subject.”

Web 2.0 and the Future of Digital Text

2007-06-23T14:38:00.000-04:00

Recovery and Resilience for Children with Mental Illness - Preview

2007-06-09T07:11:00.000-04:00

Stigma and the cycle of secrets

2007-03-08T12:05:00.000-05:00

A friend brought his child to the psychiatric emergency room last week. The kid was admitted for several days because the condition required supervision and treatment. When it became time to contact the school about the absence, my friend was advised by the treatment team: Don't tell anyone why your child was hospitalized!

Why must an episode of medical care be transformed into a shameful secret? The upside of nondisclosure is that privacy is safeguarded -- but the downside is that for the rest of the child's life the kid will face opportunities to get "outed" for the hospitalization. If the kid had a more respectable medical problem there would be nothing to worry about.

So what's a parent to do?

--pk---

Winton Place Youth Center

2006-12-13T10:59:00.000-05:00


Winton Place Youth Center celebrates twenty years of service to children in Cincinnati's Winton Place neighborhood. This video describes our programs, our history, and the impact we have had on children's lives.

Ask DeWine to support school anti-drug programs

2006-07-10T13:51:00.000-04:00

Please urge Sen. DeWine to support increasing the funding for community drug prevention activities. His subcommittee is voting on the appropriation soon.

Ask him to support a funding level of $400 million for the State Grants portion of the Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities (SDFSC) program in the FY 2007 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill.

This program is the only source of federal funding for school-based drug and alcohol abuse prevention. The program serves more than 37 million youth per year.

Pres. Bush has deleted this item from his FY 2007 budget request.

You can send a fax to Senator DeWine by visiting this link.

New Progressive Communication Resource

2006-06-06T23:18:00.000-04:00

The Opportunity Agenda and The SPIN Project released their new publication, "American Opportunity: A Communications Toolkit." The toolkit is intended to help leaders and organizations strengthen their communications in ways that build broader and more lasting support for social justice in the United States. It will introduce your organization to a communications approach rooted in shared values, that are believed to greatly expand the constituency for positive social change. This toolkit can be found at http://www.opportunityagenda.org.

Women, Children and Housing Last

2006-03-22T09:21:00.000-05:00

According to the National Woman's Law Center (NWLC), the newly released FY2007 budget is missing three prime components--women, children and housing.

This budget will decrease economic security and reduce opportunity for low-income women and children, according to the NWLC analysis of President Bush's released budget. While tax reductions will be awarded to wealthier citizens, women and children will be short-changed by disproportionate program cuts in the national budget.

"Six years ago, the President told Americans that the nation could afford to have tax cuts and continue to meet its domestic priorities," said Joan Entmacher, NWLC Vice President for Family Economic Security. "But he failed to mention that under his watch, quality of life for low- and moderate-income Americans would not be a priority.

Specifically, the budget would harm vulnerable American women and families by:

· Cutting $13 billion from Medicaid over the next five years,
· slashing education spending by 29 percent next year,
· pushing 300,000 individuals off the food stamp program,
· slashing housing assistance for low-income families and the elderly,

The President's budget also cuts $600 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), a 1.8% decrease from last year's budget appropriations. HUD recently reported that 5.18 million very low-income families have critical housing problems, especially in light of the Golf Coast Hurricanes. The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) objects strenuously to the Administration's failure to make affordable housing a priority, as it ignores elderly and low-income citizens' housing needs, in particular.

Poverty is a national crisis

2005-09-11T20:49:00.000-04:00

Here's an item I found from Sojourner's:

As Hurricane Katrina has dramatically exposed the urban poverty in southern cities, it is important to remember that poverty is a national problem, and a growing one.

37 million - total number of people living in poverty in the U.S.
13 million - number of children living in poverty
1.1 million - number of people who fell below the poverty threshold between 2003 and 2004
4 - number of consecutive years in which the poverty rate has risen in America

Source: The U.S. Census Bureau

Indifference to Suffering

2005-09-01T12:13:00.000-04:00

Bob Herbert has identified the newest, cruelest Medicaid strategy:
Just quit helping the sick!

The word in Tennessee is that Gov. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, has presidential aspirations. I find that interesting. Perhaps he can run on the success he's had throwing sick people off of Medicaid.

Thanks to Mr. Bredesen's leadership, Tennessee is dumping nearly 200,000 residents, some of them desperately ill, from TennCare, the state's Medicaid program. Cindy Mann, a research professor and executive director of the Center for Children and Families at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute, concisely characterized the governor's efforts:

"What he's decided to do is save health care costs simply by not giving people health care."

How's that for a solution to a tough public policy issue?

For more, see Curing Health Costs: Let the Sick Suffer - New York Times

Gary Hart's Challenge: Who Will Say 'No More'?

2005-08-27T16:38:00.000-04:00

In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, Gary Hart challenged the leaders of the Democratic Party to take a tough, realistic stand to end the Iraq war. Who will accept his challenge?

"History will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world, diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold War, accumulating staggering deficits, misdirecting revenue from education to rebuilding Iraqi buildings we've blown up, and weakening America's national security.

"But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping on any political stove. In their leaders, the American people look for strength, determination and self-confidence, but they also look for courage, wisdom, judgment and, in times of moral crisis, the willingness to say: 'I was wrong.'

"To stay silent during such a crisis, and particularly to harbor the thought that the administration's misfortune is the Democrats' fortune, is cowardly. In 2008 I want a leader who is willing now to say: 'I made a mistake, and for my mistake I am going to Iraq and accompanying the next planeload of flag-draped coffins back to Dover Air Force Base. And I am going to ask forgiveness for my mistake from every parent who will talk to me.'"

Complete article: Who Will Say 'No More'?

Resources - Homeless Issues

2005-08-12T08:53:00.000-04:00

Resource List
A listing of organizations serving homeless and low-income people in Ohio, searchable by organization name, city, county or focus. Also provides links to statewide and national organizations. Source: Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio.

Stop military recruiters from targeting your child

2005-08-10T13:54:00.000-04:00

You may not know it, but under a little known provision of No Child Left Behind, public high schools must hand over personal information about students -- including minors -- to local military recruiters. I think it's a real invasion of family privacy. The good news is, parents can get their kids off this list by submitting a request in writing to their school district superintendent.

I just found some great information and a useful online tool that makes it easy to "opt out" children from the list high schools are required to release to military recruiters. Just go to http://www.leavemychildalone.org/tellfriends . Not only can you get your own kids off the list, you can help change the law that lets military recruiters prey on our minor children without the parents' explict permission. Hope you find it useful! And tell other people you know about LeaveMyChildAlone.org!

Community Briefing About Ohio's Kids and Families

2005-08-10T10:58:00.000-04:00

Voices for Children of Greater Cleveland will present "Raise Your Voice Community Briefings: What's Next for Ohio's Kids and Families" on Tuesday, August 23, 2005, 8:30 a.m.--3:00 p.m., at the American Red Cross in Blue Ash. Participants will learn how to educate their communities and local elected officials and activate their networks to advocate for issues that affect Ohio's children and families. The registration deadline is August 16, 2005. There is no fee to attend the session, but a contribution of $10 to defray costs is appreciated. For more information, call 216-881-7860

Research Shows Non-Profit Organizations Unprepared to Use Older Volunteers

2005-08-07T20:16:00.000-04:00

A first-of-its-kind survey of a select group of the nation’s leading non-profit organizations shows that they are largely unequipped to use older Americans as volunteers, even though the rapidly growing ranks of retirement-age Americans could provide a valuable resource for such groups.

Source: The National Council on the Aging

Grants for Alcohol, HIV/AIDS Risk Reduction

2005-08-07T19:53:00.000-04:00

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) along with the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), is calling for applications to research structural interventions to reduce HIV/AIDS transmission by 'changing the environment of alcohol use.'

Any for-profit and nonprofit organizations, governments, religious groups, and individuals capable of building and implementing the programs to the desired result are eligible to apply for this grant.

Source: JoinTogether

Introduction

2005-08-07T19:05:00.000-04:00

Welcome to my new blog, Human Intervention.

I'll use this area to keep you informed of news and events relating to issues of particular concern to those of us who wish to "change the world."

I hope you find it informative and useful.

Best regards.

--pk---