Midtown Community Mental Health Center assumes responsibility for ACES Project
December 13, 2006
Contact: Michelle O'Keefe
Phone: 317-630-6863
Pager: 317-310-5972
Indianapolis, December 13, 2006 - Midtown Community Mental Health Center, a division of Wishard Health Services, has announced that it will assume primary responsibility for the ACES Project.
Midtown was an initial partner and for the past eight years has been a steadfast supporter of the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention (CHIP) and CHOICES, Inc. in creating and sustaining the Action Coalition to Ensure Stability, commonly known in the Indianapolis community as the ACES Project.
The innovative ACES Project has served local homeless persons living with addiction and mental illness in an unprecedented and creative way. The project brings community partners together to support participants with wraparound services. The project further provides high-intensity resource coordination teams to work with clients to help them obtain and sustain stability in housing and recovery.
As stated at a press conference on November 14, funding for the ACES Project has ended and the program faces closure. Through its mission and commitment to serve the severely mentally ill in Marion County, Midtown Community Mental Health Center will continue to serve ACES clients, assuring longtime agency partners and the community a seamless transition for those served by the program.
"These services are important to our community's most vulnerable," said Matt Gutwein, president and chief executive officer of the Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County, the municipal corporation which owns and operates Wishard Health Services. "All of us at Midtown and Wishard want to ensure that homeless persons in our community continue to receive services needed to restore their lives."
Health and Hospital Corporation, Wishard Health Services and Midtown Community Mental Health Center praise CHOICES for their many years of innovation and ingenuity in the Indianapolis community. Using an unprecedented and award-winning model for providing services to this vulnerable population, the CHOICES organization reached nearly 400 people through the ACES Project since its inception.
"The entire community is indebted to Midtown Community Mental Health Center and the Health and Hospital Corporation for its willingness to step forward to save the ACES program," said Bill Moreau, chairman of the CHIP board of directors and partner with Barnes & Thornburg LLP. "ACES is a key component of the community's Blueprint to End Homelessness. The best testament of ACES is the success of its graduates – who have gone from hopeless, homeless, and ill to regaining homes and productive lives. Better still, ACES is not only effective, it is cost-effective. Yet, even with the proven success of the program and Midtown's investment, we still need additional financial assistance to ensure that ACES clients, as they bravely battle their illnesses, have homes and other essentials."
ACES resource coordinators will remain employees of Midtown Community Mental Health Center (Wishard Health Services) and they will continue their supportive coordination roles with their current active ACES clients. At present, this includes 80 individuals, with the intent to rebuild the program back to the 150 clients the ACES Project once served.
"The CHOICES board and staff answered CHIP's call to create, nurture and grow a method of caring for our most challenged homeless neighbors that has literally changed hundreds of lives forever," added Moreau. "The ACES program that emerged is a national model and will be a lasting legacy for CHOICES and ACES' remarkable program director, Brent Matthews, whose steadfast, compassionate leadership has inspired all of us who have worked with him."
Midtown Community Mental Health Center remains committed to the delivery of crucial community mental health services, but a funding gap still exists for patients who are not eligible for programs such as Social Security Disability and Medicaid. While treatment methods have been proven effective, little funding is available for those battling conditions such as chronic addiction.
"Midtown will be aggressively pursuing additional funding opportunities through our community partnerships, with no break in services to our clients. We are committed to providing services for those struggling with addiction and mental illness and we will continue to support these clients in every possible way to promote recovery and positive outcomes," said Margie Payne, chief executive officer, Midtown Community Mental Health Center and vice president for mental health operations, Wishard Health Services.
Established in 1969 as the first mental health center in Indiana, Midtown Community Mental Health Center offers an array of mental health services including severe mental illness and substance abuse treatment, 24-hour emergency services, a detoxification program, full continuum for chronically addicted patients, specialized home- and community-based programs for seriously emotionally disturbed children and adolescents and a partial-hospitalization program.
For more information about the services offered at Midtown Community Mental Health Center, please call (317) 630-7791.