A Helping Hand: Lourdes Wilson House

The thing that stands out most when Charlie Mc Cary and Darrin Ceriale talk about their jobs is how much they enjoy being taxpayers. While other people grumble about how much of their paycheck goes to the government, it gives those who battle long-term mental illnesses a sense of normalcy to contribute to programs like Medicare and Social Security, instead of being recipients.

“People don’t realize that mentally ill people want to be taxpayers,” Mc Cary said. “We don’t want mental illness.” The Kennewick woman has fought a 10-year struggle with bipolar disorder, general depression, anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Ceriale is schizophrenic. But both are recovering and stable, and returned to work through programs offered by Lourdes Wilson House.

Wilson House is a clubhouse for people with long-term mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or major depression. It gives them a place to socialize and learn life and job skills that will help them lead stable and fulfilling lives.

Sometimes that involves learning how to write a resume or practicing job interview skills, like Ceriale did before landing his janitorial job at the federal building in Richland. But it also can mean putting people to work. People placed into what the clubhouse calls transitional employment work for Wilson House, which sends them to a job assignment in the community for six to nine months.

Linelle Summers, the clubhouse’s employment services representative, beats the pavement, convincing businesses to give clubhouse members a chance at a job. When they agree, Summers or another job coach accompanies the employee to work for two weeks of training, then turns them loose to do the job.

There are weekly checkups, so the job coach can see if the employee or the business has any problems. Wilson House also guarantees a replacement if the employee takes a sick day or doesn’t work out. “There’s never any downtime,” Summers said.

Often, transitional employment becomes permanent, like it did for Ceriale when he worked at The Market in Pasco before it became a Save-A-Lot store. He worked in the store for more than five years, getting more and more responsibility over time, until he was asked to train another employee who came from Columbia Industries, he said.

When The Market closed in late 2006, he had to look for another job, which meant brushing up on his job search and interviewing skills. The Kennewick man naturally is shy, and ran into obstacles when his job interviews didn’t follow the scripts he had read in books. So he learned to be more flexible when he answered questions. He finally started a new transitional employment assignment at the federal building a couple of weeks ago.

He likes the structure of his new job, where he gets a list each day of what he needs to do and when. And he’s excited to be giving something back by paying taxes.

Summers said each employer is aware the person coming from Wilson House has some form of disability, although it’s up to each individual employee whether to disclose what that is. “The illness isn’t the ability to do the job,” Summers said. “We’re not asking any employer who hires someone to do anything but make an accommodation, to work with a person with a disability, to be productive. The person has the power, the ability and the desire to do the job.”

For Mc Cary, the desire to work is coupled with the desire to help other people like her. She just passed a test administered by the state that will allow her to become a peer counselor. In the meantime, she started part-time transitional employment at Lourdes Counseling Center in Pasco, setting appointments and making reminder calls. She credits Wilson House with helping her get back on her feet once she started her recovery from mental illness.

“Wilson House was a fantastic opportunity for me to get acclimated to being able to choose what I want to do, and work in the areas I like to do,” Mc Cary said. She’d like to see more businesses give people with mental illnesses a chance to prove that they can be good employees. She recalled times that she was fired when her employers found out she had mental illnesses. “Mental illness is a stigma that needs to be changed,” she said. “We can recover and we do recover.”

For more information about how to hire employees through Wilson House, call Summers at 545-3390.

From Tri-City Herald

NAMI Walk a Great Success

The 4th Annual NAMI Washington State Walk was a one for the record books. 745 participants were at Magnuson Park to help fight stigma, support families and consumers, educate the community and to help improve our systems of care for the people with mental illnesses.

Many of you may be wondering if we reached our goal of $125,000. We’re almost there. As of May 14, we have raised just over $118,000. Only $7,000 more to go to reach our mark. You’ve all done such an amazing job. Let’s not stop here, we can reach that goal.

One easy way to raise more money is to check with your employer to see if they match contributions that employees make. Many employers have this as a perk. It doesn’t hurt to ask. If so, they will provide you with a form. Just complete your portion and mail to the address below. It’s that easy.

Remember, we can accept donations until July 10th. It is never too late to fundraise. Don’t hesitate to mail or email your letters again. Many of our top fundraisers understand this trick. Many people want to sponsor you, but may forget or get busy, and it is okay to remind them. It is not too late for them to sponsor you.

Mail all post walk donations and company matching funds to:

NAMI Washington
500 NE 108th Avenue, Suite 800
Bellevue, WA 98004

Crisis Intervention Training Review

Congratulations to the 15 First Responders who recently completed a five-day CIT training session held in Kennewick. This training has been long-awaited, and for the first time, an event of this kind has been offered locally.

Making it all possible was a collaborated effort between the Benton Franklin Community Mental Health Alliance Committee, staff from city police, the county sheriff’s department, the RSN, the Washington State Mental Health Transformation Project, NAMI-WA, Benton Franklin Human Services, and consumers and family members of NAMI Tri-Cities.

Those who attended were from Grant county, Benton county, Franklin county, the cities of Kennewick, West Richland, and Ephrata, as well as a chaplain and corrections staff from the local jail.

Partnership Formed for Crisis Response

Because of the need for an effective means of diverting many mentally ill offenders into more appropriate and effective alternatives, the partnership between Benton Franklin Community Action Committee, the bi-county Human Services Department, and NAMI Tri-Cities was formed.

On March 24, 2008 the Boards of Commissioners of Benton and Franklin Counties passed a Joint Resolution, appointing the Benton Franklin Community Action Committee to be the lead agency for this new center. CAC will work in conjunction with local philanthropist, Carl Cadwell to evaluate the establishment of this facility by means of private funds.

This project will be assessed in the context of a community services campus, with the co-location of related social services and programs.

Breaking the cycle of repeat offenders, which often ends with costly long-term incarceration, will increase public safety and create the opportunity for long-term cost savings to the public.