A Consumer Agency and PROS, Baltic Street Column
With heart, we will not only survive, we will flourish during these changing times
Dana Anthony, Executive Director, Baltic Street Mental Health Board
Forty years ago, Bob Dylan said: "The times they are a "changin'." Now they are changing again. New York State is implementing a major shift in mental health programming and financing called PROS (Personalized Recovery Oriented Services). No doubt most readers are familiar with this initiative. But, what does it mean for our agency and the clients that we serve? How can we continue to empower ourselves through these radically changing times?
We, the Baltic Street Mental Health Board, a mental health consumer service agency, have not graced these pages for some time; it has been such a long time that perhaps some readers may not know who we are and what we do. We are the major employer of mental health consumers in New York State. In the past eight years we have grown from one peer advocacy program in Brooklyn with four staff, to thirteen programs in four boroughs. We offer advocacy services in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Staten Island, bridger services in Brooklyn and Staten Island, employment services at three sites in Brooklyn, including a retail store and training site called the Baltic Bazaar as well as supported housing in Brooklyn and the Bronx.
It takes one hundred staff working full time, part time, temporarily and trainees to get our work done. The heart of our work is to provide opportunity and support for you, the consumer, to foster self-directed recovery. That may be a move from the hospital to the community, a place to live, a job, inspiration and information about recovery or assistance with entitlements. We are proud to say we are seventy-five percent consumer-directed and ninety-five percent consumer-staffed. Since we last spoke on these pages, we have hired, trained and served many hundreds of consumers.
But now part of the funding system for mental health is "a changin'" and this will have a dramatic impact on our agency and on consumers. The New York State Office of Mental Health's PROS initiative presents some opportunities, to be sure, but also some critical challenges (see April-June '04's PROS Challenges Consumers to Master New Rules).
In our case, the change affects the core of our employment programs at netWORKplus I, netWORKplus II, and Baltic Bazaar: specifically, how they are funded, staffed, and what kind of programming can be provided. For us, the challenge is to maintain our perspective and mission, based in the value of consumer-choice as an essential component of recovery. This tests us because Medicaid, the new funding source, requires a majority of staff to be licensed, which entails an increase in the number of "professional" staff. It also will necessitate new program development as well as training and support for current staff, none of which is bad, but at the same time we must avoid the pitfall of losing the principle of consumer-directed services. There also will be a substantial increase in administrative activity and costs, in order to meet Medicaid standards for records and billing.
Meeting all of these challenges will require creativity, ingenuity, tenacity and a powerful belief in the work that we do. We have these qualities and we have the energy to meet the demands created by these changes. However, we also need your support, your participation, and your voice in this process.
So what can we—and you—do to be empowered and have a voice?
About PROS
Look for and attend all meetings and speak-outs regarding your choices. Check the OMH website www.omh.state.ny.us and NYAPRS website www.nyaprs.org for more on PROS.
About Your Employment Needs
Look at our web site www.balticstreet.org, and see what we do and to find our telephone numbers. Then call our employment programs or look into retail traineeships at Baltic Bazaar, where you can earn while you learn. Or, if you are ready for, or curious about employment in a service agency like Baltic Street, send a resume to our Human Resources Director Marilyn Rickman, to be on file when there are opportunities to work for us. FAX: (718) 222-1116.
About Supporting Us
Get yourself on our mailing list. Call (718) 855-5929, or send us a note to 250 Baltic Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Also, we invite you to attend our "Honor the Donors" event on October 27, 2004. If you can, donate your time, creativity or even your money toward keeping Baltic Street Mental Health Board a consumer success story.
Baltic Street will survive, and even flourish, with these changes. We have the courage to do so and the experience that gives us heart. At the same time, we need you, readers, mental health consumers, concerned people, to participate with us as we go forward into the era of PROS.