U.S. Rep. David Price visited the UNC Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health on October 20 to learn more about the Center’s programs for individuals with serious mental illness.
Congressman Price, who represents North Carolina’s Fourth District, met with John Gilmore, MD, director of the Center, members of the leadership team and Center faculty: Thava Mahadevan, director of operations; Carol VanderZwaag, MD, director of community services; Beth Rossi, director of quality management; Alice Lockhart, director of communications; Ed Binanay, director of development and community affairs; Diana Perkins, MD, MPH, medical director of OASIS; Carrie Brown, MD, psychiatrist at the Wake ACT team; Lorna Moser, PhD, director of UNC ACTT Technical Assistance Center; Gary Cuddeback, PhD, director of the Community Outcomes Research and Evaluation Center; and Janice Bainbridge, LCSW, coordinator of the CTI program at the Carr Mill Clinic office.
Gilmore provided an overview of the Center’s programs, research, and its affiliation with Meridian in western North Carolina. Other faculty provided specific discussion of the Outreach and Support Intervention Service (OASIS), Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams and training, and supported employment.
“We are honored to have Congressman Price and his staff take time from their busy schedules to learn more about our work,” says John Gilmore, MD, director of the Center.
Following the meeting, Thava Mahadevan, director of operations at the Center and the UNC Farm at Penny Lane, led a tour of the UNC Farm at Penny Lane Campus in Chatham County.
Congressman Price‘s website notes that he received his undergraduate degree at UNC-Chapel Hill and earned a Bachelor’s of Divinity as well as a PhD in political science from Yale. Before he began serving in Congress in 1987, Price was a professor of political science and public policy at Duke University. He is the author of four books on Congress and the American political system.