The President's Page
April 2019
Hello NAMI North Texas Members and Friends!
I hope you were able to make it to our meeting in Denton County in March. It was great to hear the Ending the Silence Presentation again. It is always so informative and the sharing of personal experience makes such a huge difference. I’ve seen our “Ending the Silence” program many times and I always get something new as I listen to our different presenters do it from their own perspective with their own particular presentation style. It’s no wonder that the schools are so eager to get this special program in their district! After this presentation, we again had a person ask about getting this awesome NAMI public awareness educational program into their school!
Our next meeting will be held in Collin County at LifePoint Church on Hedgcoxe near the tollway. Support groups will take place at 6:00pm for both family members and for people living with a mental health condition. There will also be snacks available for those who may be coming straight from work. The educational portion of our meeting will start at 7:30pm and our presenter is Dana Bickford. Dana is the President and Board Chair of the Coalition for Behavioral Healthcare in Collin County and will talk about the vision, goals, mission and current activities of the coalition. The entire region has been in the process of rebuilding and transforming the behavioral health system. As many of you probably recall, the public mental health system in our region used to be referred to as the NorthSTAR system and that system was very different from the rest of the state. The Sunset Commission recommended that the NorthSTAR system be changed to be more like the mental health system in the rest of the state and NorthSTAR was terminated. That happened on January 1, 2017.
In place of the NorthSTAR system, we now have LifePath Systems, Collin County’s Behavioral Health Authority, as the major provider of the public behavioral health system in Collin County, along with Child & Family Guidance Centers. Collin County has their own leadership team, which offers the community a chance to provide oversight for the entire system and to recommend goals for improvement. We will hear from the community leader who chairs that coalition at our NAMI North Texas meeting. If you don’t live in Collin County, I would still encourage you to attend to learn more about what is being discussed in these meetings.
The North Texas Behavioral Health Authority (AKA NTBHA) is the Behavioral Health Authority in Dallas, Ellis, Navarro, Hunt, Rockwall, and Kaufman Counties. NTBHA has contracted with several different providers for behavioral health services in those counties. Dallas County has the Dallas County Behavioral Health Leadership team that oversees the entire behavioral health system in Dallas County offering recommendations and setting goals for improvement in services in Dallas County.
One thing ALL NAMI North Texas members understand is the impact of mental health conditions on the people who live with them and on the family members who are trying to support their loved one. All NAMI North Texas members understand the different kinds of needs that they have for support and recovery—those are not county specific, right? I invite all NAMI North Texas members to give Dana a warm welcome and to offer your thoughts and recommendations for what an ideal behavioral health system should look like! You know the answer to that question—so come listen and then share your insights! Let’s ALL participate in making the behavioral health systems in North Texas the very best they can be!
Now, let’s get ready to RUMBLE!!!! Have you signed up for the NAMIWalks event yet? Several people stopped by the NAMI office for our Kick-off Event and signed up while they were there. Yard signs were given out and some of us even won prizes! Let’s build on that energy and recruit more people to join us for the walk. We already have some terrific sponsors lined up and fun activities planned for the walk, so I’m ready to have the biggest walk ever this year. It will be here before you know it so LET’S GO!
Sherry Cusumano, RN, LCDC, MS, President of NAMI North Texas
Administrative Director of Community Education and Clinical Development
Medical City Green Oaks Hospital
7808 Clodus Fields Dr.
Dallas, TX 75251
I hope you were able to make it to our meeting in Denton County in March. It was great to hear the Ending the Silence Presentation again. It is always so informative and the sharing of personal experience makes such a huge difference. I’ve seen our “Ending the Silence” program many times and I always get something new as I listen to our different presenters do it from their own perspective with their own particular presentation style. It’s no wonder that the schools are so eager to get this special program in their district! After this presentation, we again had a person ask about getting this awesome NAMI public awareness educational program into their school!
Our next meeting will be held in Collin County at LifePoint Church on Hedgcoxe near the tollway. Support groups will take place at 6:00pm for both family members and for people living with a mental health condition. There will also be snacks available for those who may be coming straight from work. The educational portion of our meeting will start at 7:30pm and our presenter is Dana Bickford. Dana is the President and Board Chair of the Coalition for Behavioral Healthcare in Collin County and will talk about the vision, goals, mission and current activities of the coalition. The entire region has been in the process of rebuilding and transforming the behavioral health system. As many of you probably recall, the public mental health system in our region used to be referred to as the NorthSTAR system and that system was very different from the rest of the state. The Sunset Commission recommended that the NorthSTAR system be changed to be more like the mental health system in the rest of the state and NorthSTAR was terminated. That happened on January 1, 2017.
In place of the NorthSTAR system, we now have LifePath Systems, Collin County’s Behavioral Health Authority, as the major provider of the public behavioral health system in Collin County, along with Child & Family Guidance Centers. Collin County has their own leadership team, which offers the community a chance to provide oversight for the entire system and to recommend goals for improvement. We will hear from the community leader who chairs that coalition at our NAMI North Texas meeting. If you don’t live in Collin County, I would still encourage you to attend to learn more about what is being discussed in these meetings.
The North Texas Behavioral Health Authority (AKA NTBHA) is the Behavioral Health Authority in Dallas, Ellis, Navarro, Hunt, Rockwall, and Kaufman Counties. NTBHA has contracted with several different providers for behavioral health services in those counties. Dallas County has the Dallas County Behavioral Health Leadership team that oversees the entire behavioral health system in Dallas County offering recommendations and setting goals for improvement in services in Dallas County.
One thing ALL NAMI North Texas members understand is the impact of mental health conditions on the people who live with them and on the family members who are trying to support their loved one. All NAMI North Texas members understand the different kinds of needs that they have for support and recovery—those are not county specific, right? I invite all NAMI North Texas members to give Dana a warm welcome and to offer your thoughts and recommendations for what an ideal behavioral health system should look like! You know the answer to that question—so come listen and then share your insights! Let’s ALL participate in making the behavioral health systems in North Texas the very best they can be!
Now, let’s get ready to RUMBLE!!!! Have you signed up for the NAMIWalks event yet? Several people stopped by the NAMI office for our Kick-off Event and signed up while they were there. Yard signs were given out and some of us even won prizes! Let’s build on that energy and recruit more people to join us for the walk. We already have some terrific sponsors lined up and fun activities planned for the walk, so I’m ready to have the biggest walk ever this year. It will be here before you know it so LET’S GO!
Sherry Cusumano, RN, LCDC, MS, President of NAMI North Texas
Administrative Director of Community Education and Clinical Development
Medical City Green Oaks Hospital
7808 Clodus Fields Dr.
Dallas, TX 75251