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Community network connects with success
Staff, consumers praised at meeting
Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by DARWIN WEIGEL
The board of directors of the Southern Maryland Community Network held an "open" board meeting Thursday, Oct. 23, at its office in Prince Frederick.
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It was a half-hour of congenial applause for outstanding work by staff and supporters of the Southern Maryland Community Network. Then came the consumer awards and the polite applause turned to cheers and heavy-duty hand-clapping.
When SMCN consumer David Thomas walked to the podium — recognized by Christina Payne, human resources manager for SMCN for "overcoming adversity" and for a successful transition into independent living — the tone of the board meeting ratcheted upwards. And kept climbing.
When Nicholas Sandy's name was called, the clapping resumed. Some of the dozens of staff and consumers attending last month's board meeting called out the reason for his absence, "He's at school. He's at school." The clapping intensified.
Sandy is majoring in engineering, Payne explained, holding a job, maintaining an apartment and attending school. That's a major balancing act and an exceptional feat in a room filled with both the care providers and the sufferers of mental illness.
The Web site of the Maryland affiliate of the advocacy organization, the National Alliance for Mental Illness, describes mental illness as "a group of disorders causing severe disturbances in thinking, feeling and relating. They result in a substantially diminished capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life. Mental illnesses can affect persons of any age — children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly — and they can occur in any family. Several million people in the U. S. suffer from a serious, long-term mental illness."
NAMI Maryland's Web site goes on to explain, "Mental illness is not the same as mental retardation. ... Those with mental illnesses are usually of normal intelligence although they may have difficulty performing at a normal level due to their illness.
"A mental illness is not caused by bad parenting and is not a character weakness or flaw. These illnesses are due to biochemical disturbances in the brain — they are neurobiological disorders."
Recognizing mental illness as just that, an illness, is still not fully accepted but in 2005 Maryland took a huge step toward forcing the issue. The state closed Crownsville State Hospital, previously home to mentally ill patients from across the state, and began integrating the patients back into their communities.
The spreading of the Crownsville patients and operating funds into local programs proved a boon to the Southern Maryland Community Network. SMCN has been operating in Calvert County under that name since 1990. But the kernel of SMCN was launched in 1979, and under different organizational names, has run award winning mental health programs in Southern Maryland since then.
When, in 2005, SMCN won a grant to expand home rehabilitation services in Calvert and St. Mary's counties, the organization was ready.
"When we started," Bennett said, "some believed [the mentally ill] couldn't live in their own homes in the community. This program has proven that isn't correct."
Also in 2005, SMCN opened a residential crisis program for children and adolescents.
SMCN kept growing in the next 18 years, winning state recognition as well as consumer successes with its multiple-programming approach. SMCN offers crisis intervention for children, adolescents and adults; a wide range of residential options; in-home intervention, case management services and a supported employment program among other initiatives.
All of these services come under the umbrella of what SMCN Executive Director John Bennett described last year to the SMCN board of directors as "a provider of psychiatric rehabilitation services … We are not therapists. Our role is not to ‘cure' the illness, but rather to help the individual learn coping skills and strategies … [including] how to take medication, manage money, maintain housing, find and keep a job and how to function in most social situations. We don't do these things for the person but rather we assist the person in learning to do these things for themselves."
After the hour of successful financial reports and staff and organizational accolades, Bennett said true success rested with the agency's consumers.
"The amazing things they accomplish make us look good," Bennett said.
He wasn't alone in his praise.
"You guys are wonderful," Lisa Height Gross, program director of residential services called out to her staff and consumers in SMCN's housing programs. "I've been around a long time," she joked, "and you're wonderful."
Another measure of success is SMCN's crisis programming, which boasts a low 20-percent back-to-hospital referral rate.
Supportive employment, a growing program, now boasts 15 working consumers and an expanding employer base in Calvert County to make more jobs available to SMCN consumers.
As for the volunteer board of directors who Bennett praised for their part in the past year's successes, "They do this because of dedication and believing in what we do."
And there was a lot of applause, but even as the increasingly successful programs were touted and the employees staff recognized, it wasn't until the Consumer Achievement Award that the applause started getting loud.
First Thomas and then Sandy, then the decibels went higher when the final Consumer Achievement Award went to Tommy Wade.
The clapping kept growing as Wade stood and lumbered to the podium to accept his plaque, looking down at his feet, where he had concentrated his attention throughout most of last month's annual SMCN board meeting. But then, as his list of accomplishments was read, he glanced briefly upward. The caregivers bounded to their feet and the applause grew even louder.
The staff, Bennett said of the people clapping the loudest, "help those we serve live meaningful lives in the community."
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