xxAACP Newsletter, Volume 12, Number 1, Winter 1998

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Frances Roton of Dallas Texas was chosen as the AACP Administrative Director. She was chosen in a competitive hiring process conducted by AACP President Charles Huffine with the support of the Executive Committee. She will officially begin her duties on the 1st of January. We are absolutely delighted to have Frances join us in the AACP. She is well known to many in the AACP and the APA for her staff support at GAP. She has been an administrative staff at Timberlawn in Dallas for many years. Recently she has reduced her hours there and has begun administrative consulting roles to small organizations. She also works for the American Association of Psychiatric Administrators and she was recently appointed the Executive Director of the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry. Both of these organizations have many AACP members so the opportunities for collaboration with them is significant with Frances in these various roles. Lois has agreed to a quarter time administrative sonsultant role. She can be contacted at:

Frances Roton
P.O. Box 28218
Dallas, TX 75228
Phone: 972-613-0985
FAX: 972-613-5532

The position of Administrative Director evolved out of last year's Strategic Planning process. It was clear that the organization was growing both in numbers and in activities. We were in great need of a central organizing person for our committee work and or membership development.

Frances has the capacity to help greatly with both activities. She will be in a position to develop and maintain working relationships with staff at APA, the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry were we now have a formal collaborative agreement with the C&A LOCUS, our contacts at Deerfield (LOCUS software) and Socratic Systems (Internet LOCUS products and list serve) Human Sciences Press/Plenum, with Bill French and Mary Mamer our meeting coordinator from Bristol Myers Squibb and all other such key people. Those on the Executive Committee are greatly relieved. AS our organization has grown the workload has mushroomed and lack of staff support was becoming a severe limitation for our organization.

Lois Lundblade Retires

The hiring of Frances Roton has meant that our past administrative assistant, Lois Lundblade, will finally get some rest and be able to take advantage of the retirement she had begun from the University of Oregon Health Sciences University several years ago. Lois has helped us grow into the vital organization that we have become. She has been a loyal and devoted support for the board and for all those who needed staff help. Lois extended herself beyond the bounds of her regular duties on a number of occasions and saved the day for the AACP. For her devotion and good work on our behalf we give her our most heartfelt thanks and a fond "bon voyage".

Winter Meeting

The AACP Annual Winter Meeting will be held in Baltimore, MD, January 29-31, 1998. AACP expertise will support a concurrent conference entitled "The Transformation of Public Mental Health Systems: A National Forum in a State of Transition" in which Federal, State, and local leaders will address the accelerated pace of reform activities with a focus on the impact of Medicaid reform initiatives. The event is co-sponsored by the University of Maryland Department of Psychiatry, the Center for Mental Health Services, DHHS, and a number of mental health professional, family, and consumer organizations. Conference objectives include: to provide an opportunity for public dialogue on the impact of reform efforts on adults with severe mental illnesses and children with serious emotional disturbances; the identification of model reform approaches; and the identification of desired outcomes of reform and the state of outcome measures methodologies. The conference has been described as "the most comprehensive review of the impact of Medicaid mental health policy not sponsored by the behavioral health industry". For further information, please contact Kitty Squires (410-328-3414).

The Stigma of Mental Illness: a Model Curriculum

The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill has underwritten a one-hour model curriculum on the stigma of mental illness, developed by Ken Duckworth, MD, Clinical Director of the Massachusetts Mental Health Center. This curriculum, well-received in both academic and health care circles, is free to any professional involved in education and training of medical students, psychiatry residents, psychology interns, and social work students. Public sector rotations are ideal venues for it. Dr. Duckworth developed this curriculum during his years teaching second year Harvard medical students.

The curriculum includes a quiz of knowledge and attitudes about major mental illness, a 15-minute video, and a series of discussion questions. The video includes various examples of stereotypical portrayals; an organizational framework of stereotypes and commentary by Kay Jamison, Lori Schiller, Mike Wallace, and others about the effect of stigma on their lives.

For a free copy of the curriculum, contact:

Ken Duckworth, MD
Massachusetts Mental Health Center
74 Fernwood Road
Boston, MA 02115
Phone: 617-734-1300 x 117
FAX: 617-731-9514
Voice Mail: 617-734-3182


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