CONSUMER AFFAIRS BULLETIN
Volume 4, No. 1 Spring 1999

Consumer and Consumer-Supported Technical Assistance, Information and Coordinating Centers Receive Support

CMHS has awarded five grants totaling $1.7 million to support three technical assistance centers, an information resource center and a coordinating center. These centers will develop and disseminate materials, provide skill development training, and provide networking opportunities and other activities designed to promote self-help approaches. The grantees are:

• West Virginia Mental Health Consumers' Association: The newest national technical assistance center funded by CMHS, the Association will provide technical assistance services. They will be known as the Consumer Organization and Networking Technical Assistance Center (CONTAC). Larry Belcher is the Director of CONTAC. It will also organize this year's Alternative Conference --the annual CMHS-funded national mental health consumer conference.
  
  
• National Empowerment Center (NEC): This technical assistance center, led by Daniel Fisher, is designed to improve mutual understanding between consumers/survivors and other stakeholders by working collaboratively to promote recovery from mental illness. The NEC nurtures and strengthens leaders through development and dissemination of training materials.
  
  
• The National Mental Health Association National Consumer - Supporter Technical Assistance Center: This new technical assistance center will help groups who provide support to consumers, also called "consumer supporters," by building bridges to create working relationships between people living with mental illness as well as produce fact sheets, pamphlets and a newsletter.
  
  
• National Mental Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse Consumer Information Resource Center: This information center will link consumers to needed information through the Internet and other electronic services with traditional communication methods. They will also maintain networks for consumers and consumer supporters around common points of interest. Joseph Rogers heads the Clearinghouse.
  
  
• National Alliance for the Mentally Ill Consumer Supporter Coordinating Center: This coordinating center will provide access to the Internet for statewide consumer and consumer supporter networking grantees and assist them in developing assertive community treatment programs.
  
  

  Consumer Affairs Bulletin
  Volume 4, No. 1, Spring 1999