It has been an exciting year at the Center, and we continue to grow our services to reach more individuals with mental illness and to train mental health professionals around the state. Diana Perkins, MD, MPH, and her team at UNC’s Outreach and Support Intervention Services (OASIS) expanded their services for adolescents and young adults to Wake County and are located on Glenwood Avenue. Our Dartmouth-modeled IPS Supported Employment program, which helps our patients find jobs, continues to be a great success.
This year the Center became affiliated with Meridian Behavioral Health Services in Western North Carolina. Diana Perkins, MD, MPH, and her team at UNC’s Outreach and Support Intervention Services (OASIS) expanded their services for adolescents and young adults to Wake County and are located on Glenwood Avenue. Our Dartmouth-modeled IPS Supported Employment program, which helps our patients find jobs, continues to be a great success. Matthew Diehl, MSW, from our program, became the state’s official IPS Dartmouth trainer and will oversee five new regional trainers in 2016. In the fall, we were honored to have Congressman David Price, from North Carolina’s Fourth District, visit us at our Carr Mill offices and at our Farm at Penny Lane in Pittsboro.
In this report, you will read about the Step Down program that Carol VanderZwaag, MD, developed to transition appropriate Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) patients in Orange and Chatham counties to a lower intensity model. You will also read about the puppies at our UNC PAWS’ puppy development center; they have become a popular sight around the Triangle and have created a great deal of media coverage for the Center. Finally, more than 200 supporters attended our second annual gala fundraiser that featured writer Pete Earley.
Our success would not be possible without the leadership and support of our Center Advisory Board,our donors, patients, faculty, and staff.
John Gilmore, MD, Director, UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health;
Thad and Alice Eure Distinguished Professor and Vice Chair for Research & Scientific Affairs in the Department of Psychiatry