xxAACP Newsletter, Volume 14, Number 3, Summer 2000
Stotland and Dennis Honored with this year's AACP Awards
Nada Stotland is a long-standing member of the AACP and one of the "unsung heroes" of community psychiatry. She asked that, in this article, I comment more on her activities and less on the specifics of her CV .... so here goes! On receiving the AACP award, Dr. Stotland commented first that it was the most unexpected and deeply appreciated recognition she had ever enjoyed. She joked that she "has pursued public psychiatry from positions of ignorance throughout her professional career." Having encountered scant public psychiatry experiences, and mostly negative attitudes in medical school and residency, she felt strongly that when she became a director of education, her students and residents should understand the realities of public psychiatry systems and practice. She developed public psychiatry rotations for both medical students and for residents. She noted that "for some reason, after this experience, recruitment of graduates into public psychiatry positions increased dramatically!"
As president of the Illinois Psychiatric Society, Dr. Stotland noted that little attention was being paid to the public sector, and that she knew little about it. Her presidential project was to form a coalition of all the mental health professional and advocacy groups in Illinois for the express purpose of advocating for the public sector. This coalition has survived and worked for ten years. Finally, "the state couldn't stand it any more and recruited me into the system!!" After a stint as Medical Coordinator for Mental Health in Illinois, she left to become the Chair of the Psychiatry Department at a large non-profit community teaching hospital, and to continue her advocacy within the bosom of the APA. Dr. Stotland leaves out many of what we might consider her most significant contributions, including many leadership roles within the APA, most recently as Chair of the Joint Commission on Public Affairs. Her honest, straight-forward approach blended with a wonderful sense of humor have made her a powerful advocate for public psychiatry and a treasured member of our own organization.
Karl Dennis was a businessman in Chicago with the heart of a social worker. He started working with at-risk children by mobilizing his community to embrace kids for their strengths. Through Kaleidoscope Inc., which he founded in 1973, he and his associates essentially invented the concept of "wraparound services" for children. Struck with his methods and early successes, the state of Illinois asked his help in bringing back the many children the state had placed in out-of-state residential care. Mr. Dennis had been recognized in Chicago for his passion and optimism for the young people he served and for his exceptional devotion to public service. His successes in applying his strength based approach to those troubled youth returned to their communities in Illinois, brought him national recognition. For over 20 years he has been sought after as a consultant for developing programs that use a wraparound process for difficult kids. He has transported his ideas and methods to all parts of the United States. "When public agencies and communities come together to develop a common vision for the future of our children and families, then services thrive" he notes. "If either party is left out of this process, the vision is lost and our youth suffer the consequences."
Mr. Dennis has led Kaleidoscope Inc. in Chicago, Illinois for the past twenty-seven years. His agency was recently selected by the prestigious Chesapeake Institute in Washington DC as of one of the top five child-serving agencies in the country. Mr. Dennis was one of the national founders of Intensive In-Home Services and Therapeutic Foster Care. Under his direction, Kaleidoscope was one of our country's first agencies to implement a pediatric AIDS treatment foster care program, serving as a role model for similar services across the nation. Mr. Dennis serves on the faculty of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is a member of the "Friends" of the Federation of Families, and received their "Making A Difference Award" in 1995, as well as the "Marion F. Langer Award" for his national advocacy on the part of children and families from the American Orthopsychiatric Association. Most important, Karl Dennis is known to those with whom he has worked as a warm and charming person. He has a common sense, down to earth approach both to helping kids and to training staff. In his acceptance of the award, the common touch, humility and good humor that has made him such a popular teacher were clearly in evidence to all of us in the AACP annual meeting.
Stephen M.
Goldfinger, MD
Member-at-Large
Chair, AACP Awards
Committee
Stephen M. Goldfinger, MD
Vice Chair - Department of Psychiatry
SUNY HSCB
450 Clarkson Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11203
Office: (718) 270-1054
Email: steve007ny@aol.com
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