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May 24,
2012
Hill Country Contingent
Attends NARMH Conference
A
contingent from Hill Country MHDD
Centers recently attended the National
Association for Rural Mental Health
(NARMH) Conference in Anchorage,
Alaska. Linda J. Werlein, CEO of
Hill Country MHDD Centers, currently
serves as President of NARMH.
Werlein noted, “NARMH’s focus is to
promote mental health in rural
communities and to partner with other
community entities to build healthy
communities in America. One in
four adults in the US is diagnosed
with a mental illness. It was
very appropriate that this year’s
conference was held in May which has
been designated as Mental Health
month.”
The conference, Alaska: We
are RURAL … and then some!,
gave a first-hand look at how Alaska
has worked to overcome the challenges
of delivering behavioral health
services in extremely rural and
frontier settings and how services are
designed to meet the unique culture in
Alaska. The conference included
over 60 sessions with topics including
telebehavioral health, telepsychiatry,
wellness, confronting the stigma of
mental illness; resource
collaboration; resilience of the rural
people; behavioral health literacy
across cultures and various ages of
the population; clinical supervision
at a distance; integration of mental
health and primary care; cultural
attunement of services; services for
veterans, workforce development;
domestic violence; substance use
intervention and prevention; and the
wisdom and guidance of Elders and
other mentors. Information was
presented by practitioners,
researchers, and consumers from across
the nation as well as from federal
agencies such as the Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Services
Administration (SAMSHA), Health
Resources and Services Administration
(HRSA), Agency for Healthcare Research
and Quality (AHRQ), US Department of
Agriculture (USDA), US Department of
Veterans Affairs (VA), and the Federal
Communication Commission (FCC).
“The NARMH Conference is an
opportunity to learn about new and
innovative practices to overcome the
unique challenges of providing
behavioral health services in rural
and frontier settings,” said
Werlein. “It provides practical
information that can be adapted to
meet the needs of our local
communities. I am honored to
serve as President of NARMH and look
forward to hosting next year’s
conference in San Antonio.”
The 2013 NARMH Annual Conference, Lassoing Rural
Solutions for Rural Challenges”,
will be held July 31st through August
3 in San Antonio. For more
information on NARMH, please visit www.narmh.org.
About Hill
Country MHDD Centers
Hill Country MHDD Centers through
operation of 10 mental health
clinics, a Crisis Stabilization
Unit, 8 developmental disability
centers, and 8 early childhood
intervention centers, provides
community based mental health,
substance use disorder and
developmental disability services
throughout 19 counties of the
greater Texas Hill Country by
promoting independence, community
integration and recovery.
Counties served by Hill Country
include Bandera, Blanco, Comal,
Edwards, Gillespie, Hays, Kendall,
Kerr, Kimble, Kinney, Llano, Mason,
Medina, Menard, Real, Schleicher,
Sutton, Uvalde, and Val Verde.
For more information on Hill Country
MHDD Centers, please visit www.hillcountry.org.
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