FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEContact: Valerie Avery

Sept. 9, 2004(325) 829-8449; 572-5983

WTCMHMR Destination Dignity Luncheon a Success

Unprecedented changes in the delivery of mental health and retardation services were forced upon social service agencies by cuts incurred during the past legislative session.

Providers have continued to deliver the same quality of services by the thinnest of margins, but cannot incur any more funding reductions, West Texas Centers for MHMR CEO Shelley Smith, LMSW, said.

Mental health and mental retardation advocates and providers presented their wish list for the next legislative session to lawmakers at a Thursday luncheon at the Dora Roberts Ballroom.

The 2004 Destination Dignity Legislative Awareness Luncheon, hosted by West Texas Centers for MHMR celebrated the care the nearly 400 employees in 23 counties in West Texas provide. But it also gave Smith a captive audience to give invited legislators an overview of their 79th legislative platform.

Smith, who serves on several state committees overseeing the delivery of care outlined the center’s stance on:

  • Resiliency and Disease Management, which focuses on the outcomes, recovery and wellness of behavioral mental health care. Lawmakers ordered MHMR centers to concentrate on three major illnesses: schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major clinical depression.
  • Diverting people with mental health away from being housed in county jails and prisons. “Community-based treatment is more cost-effective than unnecessary institutional care,” she said.
  • Withholding changes to the state hospital funding methodologies until extensive studies are conducted. “We support our state hospital,” Smith said.
  • In-Home and Family Support funds are a valuable resource to consumers and families by keeping families and consumers in their communities.
  • Consumers should have a choice in receiving care from whomever they desire, and West Texas Centers should be allowed to continue as a provider if chosen by consumers and their families, Smith said in response to the issue of privatizing mental retardation care.

Packets of information were handed out to legislators and the more than 125 people who attended the luncheon.

“We hope you walk away with more knowledge and information about mental illness and mental retardation,” West Texas Centers Public Information Officer Cindy Smith said.

West Texas Centers board members, Garza County Judge Giles Dalby and Yoakum County Judge Dallas Brewer gave legislators, including former House Speaker Pete Laney, D-HaleCenter, a first-person account of the importance of centers continuing to operate in small communities.

“I hope the state will do what is right in regards to mental health and mental retardation and that you take that message back to Austin,” Dalby said. “We had too much cut from our budget but we haven’t failed to help those in need yet.”

“West Texas Centers has been invaluable in our county,” Brewer said. “The local collaboration is the key to our success. And it is less costly to serve people in the community than it is to serve them in the hospital.”

“I’ve never seen staff work so hard to keep people in their homes. We need your help in keeping people in the community.”

Shelley Smith and Clyde Alsup began planning the West Texas Centers delivery system in 1992, and Shelley Smith thought it fitting to name the center’s first awards after the man who had a large part in the formation of the Center.

Alsup’s widow, Evelyn, presented the Clyde J. Alsup Community Star Awards along with Shelley Smith.

Award recipients were:

  • Community Service - Ron Cook, Chief Juvenile Probation Officer for WinklerCounty
  • Media - KBST Radio, Big Spring Herald
  • Volunteer - West Texas Centers Planning and Network Advisory Council members, Murray Murphy, Don Richard, Kaye Wylie, Letha Nixon, Frank Wurtz, Sondra Qualls, Mary Hughes, Bill Jennings, Bobby Waldrop, Sandee Lockhart, Richard Light and Val Meixner.

Destination Dignity was introduced 12 years ago by the Texas Council of Community Mental Health and Mental Retardation Centers, Inc., a statewide association of the 41 community MHMR centers that offer public MHMR services to every county in Texas.

Texas Council of Community MHMR Centers executive Director Sandy Skelton outlined the organization’s legislative proposals, including the need to restore funding for many of services West Texas Centers provides in the community.

The Destination Dignity luncheon also gave center employees an opportunity to thank lawmakers for serving the citizens of Texas.

West Texas Centers for MHMR provides mental health and mental retardation services for youth, adults and senior citizens in 23 counties in rural West Texas.

Those counties are: Andrews, Borden, Crane, Dawson, Fisher, Gaines, Garza, Glasscock, Howard, Kent, Loving, Martin, Mitchell, Nolan, Reeves, Runnels, Scurry, Terrell, Terry, Upton, Ward, Winkler and Yoakum.