[humanser] volunteer support group leader

[Ericka Short]

That's something !  The klocal NAMI  groups meet at our church and a member 
of our congregation is the local president.  Jack Rose won some state award 
for all the  work he's done for NAMI.  His sister and both  of h is kids are 
live/lived with mental illness so he has  a human motivator to make life 
better.  Kenosha has wonderful services for those with mental illness 
because of him.  One of the things he  made happen was to get officers and 
EMS staff trained to deal with  mental health issues.  The whole force isn't 
trained, but  every year the  y train a few more.  Eventually  they will all 
be trained and then  this education will go into the regular curriculum for 
Kenosha cops.  Isn't that innovative and wonderful?  WI has just decided 
recently to put  cash towards treatment for  certain offenders rather than 
all of them go to jail.  We have pilot programs of drug and  mental  health 
court  in the  state.  Kenosha just started a veterans court too.  The Gov. 
has decided to  push these programs into all counties since it is actually 
working.  Thisis the only good thing Gov. walker has done for the state. 
Otherwise he's just dismantled much of the social services for people. 
Counties really struggle financially to  do what hey know is right but 
aren't supported.

I recently spoke to the head of social services and  told him how important 
it was to get  the social services directories in alternative formats.  He 
said the department had  talked about it, but didn’t' know where to get 
things adapted.  I told him about the braille and  audio services that is 
housed by the  wi talking book and braille library.  It's in their directory 
so  staff should be able to find the contact info!  He was pretty mystified 
as to  why  nobody had done anything about the issue if they had  a contact 
to  get them adapted.  he said he was going to personally champion this 
cause.  It's a lot better toget him to do this than me bringing in 
legslators.  More friendly anyhow.

I found the card so I'm going grocery shopping soon.

Ericka J. Short
262-697-0510

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me". Philippians 4:13

"No hand is too small or too big to do good in this world." EJ. Short