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DMH Office of Communications and Community Engagement | |
Questions or suggestions?
Call 617-626-8124
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DMH is Getting Social!
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 DMH is on Twitter!
@MassDMH
Spread the word: DMH is now on Twitter! We're looking forward to sharing great information, resources, links, happenings and content with you. Follow DMH on Twitter @MassDMH or just click the button at the bottom of the page and we'll follow you back!
DMH joins the Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS) and several of its agencies on Twitter -- please follow them too. Here's a list:
- EOHHS - @Mass_HHS
- Department of Public Health - @MassDPH, @MassinMotion
- Division of Health Care Finance and Policy - @MassHealthCare
- Department of Veterans Services (DVS) - @MASSDVS
- DVS Save Team - @MassVeterans
- DVS Women Veteran Network - @WomenVeterans
Thank you for supporting DMH communications efforts. As always, any questions or suggestions, please don't hesitate to contact Anna Chinappi.
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Commonwealth Conversations
BLOGS |  | |
Health and Human Services Blog
This social media platform provides news, updates and serve as a forum for open dialogue about issues related to all 16 EOHHS agencies.
Click here to read blog posts by Secretary Bigby, Commissioner Leadholm and others
Department of Public Health Blog
Click here to view the DPH blog which features expert tips on nutrition and physical activity as well as a roundup of health and wellness events
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Deadlines for upcoming issues:
January 13 for the February newsletter |
Please send all materials to
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DMH Area Citizen Legislative Breakfasts 2012
SAVE THE DATES!
DMH will host its annual series of Citizens Legislative Breakfasts in the coming months. This is an opportunity for members of the mental health community to meet with their legislators, thank them for their support and discuss how DMH helps people with mental illnesses recover and live productively and independently in communities of their choice. It is also an opportunity for consumers and family members to share good news and success stories about their life experiences. The breakfast events generally begin at 9:30 a.m. for registration and networking; program begins at 10 a.m.
Tuesday, February 9
Northeast-Suburban Area
Great Hall, State House
Thursdayy, February 16
Metro-Southeast Area
Great Hall, State House
Friday, March 30
Central-West Area
Springfield Technical Community College
Thursday April 12
Northeast-Suburban Area
Great Hall, State House
Thursday April 26
Metro-Southeast Area
Great Hall, State House
Friday, May 11
Central-West Area
Worcester Technical High School, adjacent to Worcester State Hospital
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Mental Health In Our Lives And At Work
By Joy Connell
DMH Diversity Officer and ADA Coordinator
Many of us are familiar with the statistics: Mental illness affects one in four adults, or 58 million Americans in any given year. While more serious mental illnesses affect fewer people, the fact remains that mental illness does not discriminate and is an equal opportunity condition. It can affect all people regardless of race, gender and socioeconomic background. So the odds are that you know someone -- a friend, family member, colleague, or you yourself -- who has had a mental health problem.
Work has long been cited as key to a person's recovery from mental illness and, increasingly, employers have become more active in promoting efforts to support mental health, both in and outside the workplace. According to the International Labor Organization, in the U.S. approximately 40 to 60 percent of employers with 50 or more personnel offer some sort of mental health program, including stress management. The current diversity training for Massachusetts state employees is focused on Disability Awareness, including psychiatric disabilities as well as physical disabilities.
Despite the increased awareness of and sensitivity to mental health issues, stigma continues to play a significant barrier to people living their lives as fully as possible. This form of societal prejudice and discrimination prevents individuals from acknowledging their illness and seeking treatment and help. How can you help fight this stigma? The World Health Organization suggests the following to making a difference:
1) Know the Facts - Learn the facts instead of the myths.
2) Be Aware of Your Attitudes and Behavior - We can change the way we think - and see people as unique human beings, not as labels or stereotypes.
3) Choose Your Words Carefully - Use accurate and sensitive words when talking about people with mental health problems. For example, speak about "a person with schizophrenia" rather than "a schizophrenic."
4) Educate Others - If people or the media present information that is not true, challenge their myths and stereotypes. Let them know how their negative words and incorrect descriptions affect people with mental health problems and keep alive the false ideas.
5) Focus on the Positive - We've all heard the negative stories. Let's recognize and applaud the positive ones. For example, did you know that Ron Ellis was living with depression at the height of his National Hockey League career?
6) Support People - If you have family members, friends or co-workers with mental health problems, support their choices and encourage their efforts to get well.
7) Include Everyone - People with mental health problems have a right to take an equal part in society. Let's make sure that happens.
Massachusetts has been a leader and trendsetter in the promotion of disability rights with legislation going back to the Massachusetts Service Animal Law in 1938. The hallmark 1990 federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits employers with 15 or more employees from discriminating with people with disabilities; the Massachusetts law, MGL, Chapter 151B, takes this further and prohibits such discrimination by employers with 6 or more employees.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts encourages all persons with disabilities to self-identify. The ADA Coordinator is the person at DMH who is responsible for managing and overseeing internal compliance with Affirmative Action and the ADA as it relates to employment. If you choose to self-identify, contact the DMH ADA Coordinator Joy Connell at joy.connell@dmh.state.ma.us. Self-identification is a confidential process.
If you have not already done so, all DMH employees are required to take the Disability Awareness training that is available online through PACE. In addition, managers must take an additional in-person training on Disability Awareness. More opportunities to sign up for the training will be announced shortly. The Disability Awareness training promotes the Commonwealth's Model Employer Initiative, including equality and inclusion in the work environment for all state employees and helps prevent stigma and discrimination. |
Conferences and Events Southeastern Mass (SEMA) Recovery Learning Community (RLC) and Resource Connection Center (RCC) Links
Upcoming Trainings at The Bridge Training Institute
www.thebridgetraininginstitute.org
Jan. 27, 2012, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
CBT and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:
Concentrated Skills Training in Cognitive Restructuring
Jennifer Gottlieb, Ph.D.
Feb. 10, 2012, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Violence, Psychiatric Disorders and Substance Abuse in Adolescents and Adults:
Clinical and Ethical Challenges
Robert Kinscherff, Ph.D., J.D..
Click here for the complete 2011 and 2012 training schedule.
For more information visit www.thebridgetraininginstitute.org
or email Stephen Murphy at
stevem@thebridgecm.org
MA Department of Public Health Suicide Prevention Program
2011-2012 Trainings
The Massachusetts Department of Public Health Suicide Prevention Program Workshop Calendar is available with fall trainings. More workshops will be added throughout the year. When registering, note that each event has tabs titled with information regarding the workshop. Space is limited for each workshop and fills up quickly, so register before the deadline. Click here to view the current Suicide Prevention Training Calendar.
Click here for the Transformation Center website and all the latest information and events happening throughout the mental health community.
Please send your event information to
Michelle Cormier Tallman
by the submission date for publication in DMH Connections |
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Click here to view a printable version of this flyer.
Click here for more information about the 2012 Massach
usetts Suicide Prevention Conference. |
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The DMH Community Celebrates the Season of Giving
DMH is filled with the giving spirit this holiday season as staff in Area and Site offices and facilities across the state work hard to make sure that adults children, adolescents and families in our services and their communities have something special to celebrate. Here are just a few examples:
 DMH consumers from Boston and surrounding communities were treated to turkey and all the fixings once again as Sen. Jack Hart (D-Boston); the Boston Fire Department led by Local 718 President Ed Kelly; Tom Butler from MassPort; and The Friends of Metro Boston hosted the Seventh Annual DMH Thanksgiving Feast at Florian Hall in Dorchester. More than 100 volunteers, including Commissioner Leadholm and DMH General Counsel Lester Blumberg, pictured here with one of the many Local 718 firefighters on hand, served dinner to more than 500 guests. The annual event always provides great fun and good home cooking to get everyone in the holiday spirit. Read Lester's heartfelt account of the day in his recent blog Giving Thanks by Giving Back posted on HHS Commonwealth Conversations.
Click here to view more photos from the event.
 At Central Office, two drives were held to collect needed essentials for the local community. "Warm for the Winter" was organized to collect coats, scarves, hats, gloves and new socks for the men and women of the shelters at the Erich Lindemann Community Mental Health Center in Boston. Many balls of yarn were also donated for women shelter guests who have formed a knitting group to make their own winter a little bit warmer. The second drive was an enthusiastic response to a call from BostonCANShare for donated canned goods. Staff stepped up to help the program reach a goal to collect 100,000 pounds of food for the Greater Boston Food Bank.
Corrigan Community Mental Health Center in Fall River continues their longstanding tradition and has collaborated with their local Boy Scouts troop to deliver bags of food to about 100 DMH consumers living in the community. Corrigan CMHC also hosted a holiday luncheon this month for more than 150 DMH consumers. This year staff organized a Holiday Giving Tree where "wish ornaments" for some of the neediest individuals in our services were hung for folks to choose in order to make "wishes come true." In less than four days all 34 wish ornaments were claimed by Corrigan staff members with plans for the gifts to be wrapped and delivered in time for Christmas.
Taunton State Hospital will be "giving the gift of life" this holiday season by holding a holiday blood drive.
This holiday season, the Northeast-Suburban Area Office staff were busy collecting funds to decorate a holiday tree to donate to a charity. This year the Lowell Transitional Living Center (LTLC) was chosen. The LTLC was founded in 1986 and is the largest provider of homeless services to individuals in Lowell. It provides 90 of the most vulnerable adults in the community with food, shelter, stability and dignity. It provides programs and services that meet the immediate needs for emergency shelter and food, along with case management and other help and eventually make the transition from a shelter bed to a permanent place to call home.
 | | Pictured decorating the Giving Tree at Worcester State Hospital are are staff left to right: Tilford Bartman, Adult Clinical Services Authorization Specialist; Susana Shuler, Administrative Assistant; and Corey Gabowitz, Adult Clinical Services Authorization Specialist. |
The DMH Central-West Area, Central Mass. region continued their Giving Tree tradition for the third consecutive year. This is a regional effort by the DMH Site Offices, Child and Adolescent Services, Worcester State Hospital and the Worcester Area Office. Individuals served offer a wish that is printed on an ornament and placed on the Giving Tree located in the lobby of Worcester State Hospital. Family, friends, providers and staff-the entire mental health community-are encouraged to choose an ornament and fulfill a personalized wish. Each year the Giving Tree has provided hundreds of gifts for individuals in both the hospital and community served by DMH. The Central-West Area and Worcester State Hospital staff and friends extend their thanks to all who have faithfully contributed every year and look forward to yet another successful season filled with hope and good will.
The Western Mass. region of the Central-West Area will be combining their holiday luncheon with a raffle of gift items donated by staff. Proceeds from the raffle will benefit local human service charities and organizations in the area. Those participating in the luncheon and raffle include staff from the DMH Northampton Area Office and the Hampshire and Westfield Site Offices.
Staff from the combined Springfield and Holyoke/Chicopee Site Offices are donating items to the Springfield Rescue Mission charity. The collection will help support the mission's Christmas activities which include: Christmas Gift and Food Box Delivery, Christmas Breakfast, Christmas Meal Delivery and Christmas Dinner. NAMI/Berkshires chapter members plan to deliver holiday gift packages to individuals in Berkshire psychiatric inpatient services. The Berkshire DMH Site Office staff will also contribute to this effort. An annual holiday party for members, their families and friends will be held just before Christmas at the Forum House in Westfield. The Forum House will be open on Christmas Day and will provide an annual holiday dinner to all members wishing to get together to enjoy the day.
The StarLight Club in Hampshire County has planned their annual Holiday Party for members and guests on Dec. 21. They will also be collecting Christmas items for two families they have sponsored through the Department of Children and Families and Safe Passage.
The spirit of giving is alive and well throughout the DMH community and we thank staff and consumers, providers and friends who make the season much brighter for so many! |
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Recovery, Peers are Key to DMH Inpatient Mission
DMH inpatient staff share best practices, hear from national experts at two-day conference
DMH recently held a two-day staff conference on strengthening recovery in DMH adult inpatient facilities, ushering in a new time and era for mental health care and treatment for adults, youth and families in Massachusetts living with serious mental illness and emotional disturbance. As the Department prepares to open the new Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital next year, the conference was spearheaded by DMH Deputy Commissioner of Mental Health Services Marcia Fowler. "This is the time we can focus our minds, our approach, our philosophy and treatment programs statewide to be the best consumer-driven and recovery oriented mental health delivery system in the country," said Deputy Commissioner Fowler.
More than 200 staff from across the DMH inpatient system heard from national experts in recovery and trauma-informed care such as Kevin Huckshorn, RN, MSN, CADC and former assistant Hospital Administrator and Chief Nursing Officer for South Florida State Hospital. Huckshorn, who now serves as director of the National Technical Assistance Center for the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, discussed "Implementing Recovery Values: One Practice at a Time" to kick off the jammed-packed two-day agenda. Other national experts included Beth Caldwell, MS, and Sharon Wise, MHS, a consultant to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's Promoting Alternatives to Seclusion and Restraint Through Trauma-Informed Care. They were joined by many experts, nationally and locally, who riveted the gathering with presentations that sparked lively discussion.
Commissioner Leadholm said, "I am very proud of our inpatient staff. They are the trailblazers in our drive for state-of-the-art services. We hear those words all the time and I challenge anyone to say the DMH inpatient system is not state of the art today."
The two-day training conference also served as one of many opportunities for DMH to focus on safety in our facilities. "A therapeutic trauma-informed environment, which I know everyone strives to create and maintain in DMH inpatient facilities, is the key to patient and staff safety and the prevention of restraint and seclusion," Commissioner Leadholm said.
The Commissioner began the conference by sharing the Guiding Principles for the Vision for DMH facilities going forward:
- Person-centered. Services are individualized, based on a clear understanding of the person's identified preferences and needs, and shaped by the person's values, hopes and aspirations.
- Recovery-focused. Services are focused on assisting the person develop hope and a new sense of purpose, as they make continual progress in living beyond the life-interrupting effects of mental illness.
- Health and Wellness-oriented. Services are designed to assist the person to establish and maintain a healthy lifestyle that enhances physical, emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual well-being.
- Community Integrated. Services are oriented to provide the person with opportunities for community connections and to facilitate a return to community roles.
- Holistic and Comprehensive. Services are implemented by a trans-disciplinary team, including peers and informal supports at the person's discretion who engage in discussion about strengths and goals and provide a complete menu of service options, designed and matched to the person's vision for a successful return to community living.
- Hope infused. Services are grounded in the positive expectation that each person can grow, can become more resilient, can manage their well-being and can move beyond their illness and create a meaningful and fulfilling future.
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Veterans Services: Multi-Agency Approach
Is Key to Success
State House Forum Highlights Collaborations
In honor of Veteran's Day last month, Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray, Attorney General Martha Coakley and Department of Veteran's Affairs Secretary Coleman Nee hosted a multi-panel "State of Veterans Services Forum" at the State House. With opening remarks from the hosts as well as Chief of Deployment Cycle Support of the Massachusetts National Guard Major Michael Greene and President of the Massachusetts Veterans Services Officer Association Michael Sweeney, the forum was built around panel discussions on access to education, employment and workforce training, mental health and suicide prevention and the criminal justice system--critical topics to the overall well being of the Commonwealth's military veterans.
 Debra Pinals, M.D., DMH Assistant Commission of Forensic Mental Health Services and Interim Deputy Commissioner of Clinical and Professional Services, pictured with Attorney General Coakley, participated on the Veterans & the Criminal Justice System panel.
In the November issue of DMH Connections, we featured "Honoring Our Veterans: Creating Hope and Healing" which described the MISSION Direct Vet (MDV) project. Dr. Pinals, a principal investigator in this SAMHSA-funded demonstration project, thanked Dr. David Smelson, co-principal investigator and his team of the University of Massachusetts Medical School Department of Psychiatry and the Bedford Veteran's Administration as well as Secretary Nee and his SAVE team, Chief Justice Connolly of the District Court and Commissioner Corbett of Probation. "None of this would be possible without this seed of interagency collaboration," said Dr. Pinals.
The panel also included Worcester District Court Presiding Justice Judge Paul Loconto and Chief Probation Office Maureen Chamberlain. Deputy Chief Craig W. Davis and Sarah Abbott represented the Framingham Police Department. Deputy Chief Davis praised the program as a helpful resource for the Framingham Police Department and said the program is an asset to his officers who, with professional clinical resources, have diverted many individuals into treatment rather than arrest. He noted that every person who is arrested is asked if they are a veteran and if the answer is affirmative, they are automatically linked to Veteran's Services.
"The idea behind jail diversion is not about ignoring criminal conduct or taking a risk," said Dr. Pinals, "it's just the opposite. The idea behind it is based on getting people in the right door, taking a long view of an individual's needs and what brought them to the doors of the criminal justice system in the first place and understand and develop programs that will help them going forward.
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| | Press the play button or Click here to watch a video clip from the Veterans & the Criminal Justice System panel on the topic of jail diversion. |
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Fall into Wellness: Incorporating Healthy Living at Lindemann CMHC Gym
The Erich Lindemann Community Mental Health Center gym has become the hub for health and wellness for adults in Community Based Flexible Supports (CBFS) services throughout the metro Boston region. This year the annual "Fall Into Fitness" event expanded its scope to encourage staff and clients to fall into wellness. The event was held to coincide with the Great American Smokeout on Nov. 17.
The well-attended event encouraged participants to get educated and active. Information tables included materials on smoking cessation, weight loss and fitness, nutrition and healthy cooking, heart health and blood pressure, diabetes and glucose screening, and recovery learning/fitness mentors. Guests who visited at least eight tables or participated in the day's ongoing activities of basketball, badminton, ping pong or yoga had the chance to enter a drawing for prizes. The lucky winners received Lindemann workout gear, Subway gift cards, or New Balance gym bags and sneakers from a generous donation by Paula Carney of the New Balance Marketing Department.
 A unique addition to the activities of the day was the energetic instruction of Louise Carbone, pictured here teaching a self defense move to a participant, and Dianne Taylor who generously volunteered their time to lead Zumba and self defense classes throughout the day. Louise and Dianne are certified private instructors who teach Zumba at various YMCAs, the Framingham prison and elder service agencies. Healthy snacks of yogurt, fruits, cheese and crackers were also served.
Overall health and wellness continues to be incorporated into the programming at the Lindemann gym and throughout DMH. Stay tuned for upcoming DMH Connections editions for more information on getting and staying well and fit.
Click here to view mre photos from the event. |
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Photo of the Month
Recovery is Real on TV
Shedrick Gavin makes a proud fashion statement wearing his "Recovery Is Real" T-shirt for his show-stopping performance of John Legend's "Number One" on the Community Auditions TV show. The shirt was designed for the 2009 Metro Boston NAMI Walk team. Shedrick chose to wear green for his television appearance as it symbolizes Mental Health Awareness.
Access photos of DMH Events anytime at the DMH Photo Gallery on Shutterfly
New in the DMH Photo Gallery:
Nov. 17 Fall Into Wellness at the Lindemann CMHC Gym
DMH's Star of the Day Shedrick Gavin on Community Auditions!
Friends Thanksgiving 2011
If you have photos from a DMH event that you would like featured as photo of the month or on the site, please send them to
Michelle Cormier Tallman
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We will be posting DMH Connections on DMH's on the new improved archives page of the internetand staff intranet sites. View issues from 2008 to the Present.
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DMH Connections proudly continues
3 years of continuous publication! | |
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