PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Approximately 800 people with mental illnesses from across the country will gather at the Loews Philadelphia Hotel (1200 Market Street) August 23-26 for a national conference to celebrate their self-help and advocacy movement and to share information about vital mental health issues, including how to design and establish alternative mental health services. 

The conference -- called "Alternatives 2001" -- is the 17th annual national convention organized by and for people with psychiatric disabilities, who call themselves mental health consumers or psychiatric survivors. "We are coming together to address the challenge of how to make a more powerful impact on mental health policy, as well as to share skills in consumer-operated service development and other subjects vital to those of us who have psychiatric disabilities," said Joseph A. Rogers, executive director of the Philadelphia-based National Mental Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse, which is organizing the conference. 

Rogers added, "We are excited to be hosting consumers and survivors 
from coast to coast and North to South, many of whom have well-earned reputations as movers and shakers in their communities, states, and nationwide." A nationally known leader of the self-help and advocacy movement of people with psychiatric disabilities, Rogers has appeared on Donahue, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Sally Jessy Raphael Show and a variety of other television and radio programs to promote the movement. 

The keynote speaker (8/23, 1-2:30 p.m., Loews Philadelphia Hotel, Millennium Hall, 2nd Floor) is award-winning journalist Liz Spikol, managing editor of the Philadelphia Weekly. Ms. Spikol writes often on mental health issues, including about her own struggles with mental illness. 

U.S. Rep. Jim Greenwood (R-PA) will address a plenary session on August 24 at 12:30 p.m. (Regency Ballroom, 2nd Floor Mezzanine). He will give a brief update on important issues that will have an impact on the future of the consumer movement. 

The conference will include workshops teaching skills in such areas as recovery, advocacy, and establishing peer-run services. Also included 
will be Dialogue Sessions whose goal is to achieve consensus among consumers/survivors on a variety of national issues, including forced 
treatment, managed care, and issues involving people with mental illnesses in the criminal justice system. These sessions will continue work begun at the 1999 National Summit of Mental Health Consumers and Survivors, in Portland, Ore., and at Summit 2000, in Washington, D.C., in June 2000. The goal of both Summits was to address the implications of key issues in order to develop a unified national voice of people with psychiatric disabilities. 

The National Mental Health Consumers' Self-Help Clearinghouse is one of three consumer-run national technical assistance centers serving consumers and consumer groups nationwide; the other two are the National Empowerment Center in Lawrence, Mass., and CONTAC (Consumer Organization and Networking Technical Assistance Center) in Charleston, W. Va. All three centers are funded by grants from the federal Center for Mental Health Services of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. 

SOURCE Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania