North Carolina Mental Health Disaster and Caramore

Concerned and confused as we are over the failure of North Carolina’s mental health reform? It’s worth mentioning, with all the terrible news, that Caramore has been operating for 30 years. We’re a not-for-profit organization tied to Vocational Rehabilitation and receive a large amount of our funding for the employment, housing, and stability we help our clients attain.

We offer our program as a valid and successful response to severe mental illness. We battle stigma in the hopes of not only demystifying the illness, but also to demystify the path of treatment. For many people stricken with psychiatric diseases, our 24 hour-a-day structure and support—combined with medication, doctors, and therapy—is an essential element towards managing the illness for life.

Although we provide “community support” in that we are a “structured support” program, we are not a private community support provider presently seeing disgrace in the N&O this week.

We do not bill Medicaid for any services. The money we do get for helping individuals suffering from mental illness restore their lives is well spent tax money. Indeed, the current uproar in the press is over the very fact that private companies have profiteered from the sick and poor. Some of our tax dollars should be appropriately funneled as a safety net for the vulnerable, and that’s what happens at Caramore. Unfortunately, that truth might escape notice in the current storm of criticism over mental health in North Carolina. Even though we serve a statistically small number of people, and we’re not always applicable for everyone, Caramore’s model should be better known (we’re trying!), and held up as an example of what does and has worked in this state.

We’re unique, we’re here for the long haul, and no one does what we do as well as we do. Please email me with any questions, and Caramore is always open for tours and information.

Thank you,

David Cooley
Vice President
dcooley@caramore.org

Kwami Jackson

Our own Kwami Jackson was recently featured in “West End Poetry” with the following poem…

Made for you

As you turn it on it brushes against the flesh

Then falls into creeks and streams

Put it in a cup as it ravels down the throats many

Where? Ashes spread, guns are thrown, and decomposed bodies float aside.

Thrown garbage in the sea lies here

Where piers are guilt for you and me

A mother in a unexpected place. Water breaks!

As drops of rain falls for growth.

It is most of the body. Human, mammal or animal.

At times it can be frozen

Materials were made to repel because of it.

Some beds have it

You could not clean dishes without it.

Nothings can live without it

You brush your teeth and wash your face and then turn off the water.

Robert Kwami Jackson

Kwami is also featured in this month’s documentary movie,“
Brushes with Life: Art, Artists and Mental Illness.”