MHMRA of Harris County - Annual Report FY 2012 2012 | Page 8

Investing in Healthy Minds and a Healthy Community Invest in Us The theme of this year’s annual report is Investing in Healthy Minds and a Healthy Community. When we, as a community, fund mental health and IDD services, we’re making a good investment decision. We’re choosing to take a proactive approach and pay for early intervention and ongoing care, rather than, by our inaction, choosing to pay the high emotional and fiscal tolls of crises that can result when people do not receive the care they need. Friends of MHMRA of Harris County (“Friends”) is a vehicle that allows you, as an individual community member, to invest in MHMRA and the critically important services it provides our community. Friends is an independent nonprofit organization that seeks to enhance and expand the services and supports provided by and through MHMRA. Through your generosity, we have made a variety of grants to support MHMRA and its consumers. In FY 2013, we will make our biggest grant yet to the Interim Care Clinic, located at the Neuropsychiatric Center in Houston’s Medical Center. The purpose of the clinic is to provide care for people waiting to receive an appointment at one of MHMRA’s mental health outpatient clinics, to prevent further deterioration of their illness. Friends will cover the costs of onemonth prescriptions for psychotropic medications in collaboration with HEB’s $4/$5 prescription program. This is important because equipping a person with the appropriate medication is often the first step in helping him work toward recovery. We could not provide support to the Interim Care Clinic and other MHMRA programs without help from donors like you. If you have donated, thank you for investing in us and for recognizing that mental health care and IDD services are good for you, your loved ones and the entire community. If you have not donated, please consider making a donation. Learn more at friendsofmhmra.org. Vision Mission The vision of MHMRA of Harris County is that the public mental health and mental retardation system will act in partnership with consumers, family members, service providers and policy makers to create options responsive to individual needs and preferences. This vision includes recognition of these values: • The individuals that MHMRA serves share common human needs, rights, desires and strengths. • MHMRA celebrates cultural diversity and individual uniqueness and is committed to support individual choices and preferences. • MHMRA is committed to developing an environment that inspires and promotes innovation, fosters dynamic leadership and rewards creativity among our staff, volunteers and consumers. It shall be the mission of MHMRA of Harris County, within the resources available, to provide or ensure the provision of services and supports in a respectful fashion that are high quality, efficient, and cost effective such that persons with mental disabilities may live with dignity as fully functioning, participating, and contributing members of our community as possible, regardless of their ability to pay or third party coverage. • Persons with severe mental illness should be able to live in homes of their own, develop relationships, work, and remain out of hospitals and jails. • Persons with intellectual or developmental disabilities should be able to acquire the skills and access community resources to develop networks of human relationships, learn, work, and live in environments of their choosing. • Children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbance should be able to live in homes with families, develop normal relationships with their peers, attend school, and remain out of hospitals and juvenile justice facilities. 8| 2012 Annual Report| MHMRA of Harris County