Recovery and Resiliency Activities at Our Service Centers

At ValueOptions® we support our service centers in providing the highest quality of care that offers hope for better health, productive living, and fulfilling relationships with friends and loved ones. At ValueOptions® we understand that mental illness does not define the individual.

The following activities at our service centers demonstrate the commitment that ValueOptions® has made to cultivate recovery and resiliency for individuals with mental illness.

Pennsylvania Service Center

  • Funds a consumer-operated recovery center in Greene County.
  • Employs a consumer-led team conducting community outreach and education.
  • Funds a yearly recovery forum, which more than 400 people attend each year.
  • Employs two consumer recovery and resiliency specialists. These staff members ensure that recovery is practiced throughout the Pennsylvania provider network.

Florida Service Center

  • Employs four Consumer Family Coordinators to conduct outreach, education and advocacy to community members in need of services.
  • Supports Consumer Family Coordinator in Tampa area who:
    • Starts and maintains mutual support groups.
    • Provides outreach to 2,000 high school and middle school students.
    • Coordinates the “My Story Matters” program, where recovery successes, challenges and joys are shared with the public, which affirms that recovery is possible.
  • Provides consumer-led Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT) with law enforcement throughout the state, teaching officers how to interact with people in crisis and de-escalate critical situations.
  • Holds consumer forums twice a year in each region. Nearly 500 consumers attend these forums each year.

Colorado Service Center

  • Funds eight recovery/empowerment centers, directed and staffed by consumers.  These programs fill a valuable niche in rural and frontier regions of Colorado including Grand Junction, Rifle, Delta, Montrose, Cortez, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and La Junta.
  • Teaches consumers how to use Person-Directed Planning to assist consumers and family members in directing the treatment planning process, setting individual clinical goals and communicating effectively with providers.
  • Employs peers and family members who serve as consumer advocates, coordinate the complaints process, and provide a variety of other peer and family-led services. 
  • Conducts ongoing training and professional development for peer/family peer specialists.

Texas Service Center

  • Hires consumers and family members at the service center and at provider sites. Consumers and family members teach, advocate and support their peers who are in recovery. 

Connecticut Service Center

  • Employs six peer and family-peer specialists to provide advocacy, training and support for families raising a child with mental illness. They advocate in the school system, at Individual Education Plans (IEP) meetings, and connect families with wraparound services.
  • Supports the training of peer specialists in curriculum adapted for families with young children. 
  • Conducts outcome research on recovery, led by consumers and family members.

Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership

  • Facilitates Consumer Advisory and Family Advisory Councils that provide input into program management.
  • Provides technical assistance and funding to consumer-run education and support initiatives. They include the Peer Educators Project, Massachusetts Clubhouse Coalition Dual Recover Anonymous initiative, and M-POWER/Transformation Center Leadership Academy
  • Creates educational forums for providers, consumers, families, state agencies, and staff. The annual “Partnering for Recovery Conference” is one of the most well known of these educational forums. 
  • Educates consumers, providers and the community about barriers to care for special populations. These special populations include refugees and immigrants, people who are deaf or hard of hearing, people in need of interpreter services, and families of people with serious behavioral health needs.