News and Views

Bilingual Resource Specialist
NMHA Resource Center
National Mental Health Association Resource Center seeks a Bilingual Resource Specialist (Spanish/English) to respond to inquiries regarding mental health resources and referrals. Candidate must have excellent verbal, interpersonal, and written communication skills in Spanish and English languages, strong computer skills, and be patient, mature, able to remain calm while dealing with a variety of callers, detail-oriented, well organized, and a self-starter. BSW or BA degree in psychology, social work or related field strongly preferred. Two years work experience in a mental health setting preferred. Experience with telephone referral or help-line a plus. Please send cover letter/letter of interest, resume and short writing samples (one English, one Spanish) to jobs@nmha.org. Please type “Attn: RM” in the subject line. No phone calls please. EOE

Internship Opportunities
The National Mental Health Association, a nonprofit organization addressing all aspects of mental health and mental illness, is seeking undergraduate and graduate students for its internship program. The program is designed to provide a unique opportunity for students to gain real-world work experience relevant to their academic and career goals. Internships are available in various programs and departments. Such as: Fundraising/Development, NAMHPAC, NCSTAC, Service and Policy Center, World Federation, Communications/Media and Publications Sales. See the internship program section of this web site for more details or to apply online. Other application options include sending a resume to NMHA/JDS, 2000 N. Beauregard Street, 6th Floor, Alexandria, VA 22311, a fax to (703) 684-5968, or an e-mail interns@nmha.org. No phone calls please. EOE

The Center for Psychiatric Research is pleased to announce that we will
be offering CEUs/CMEs for our upcoming Family Psychoeducation Training
on September 12-14!

If you have already registered and would like to receive a certificate
of completion, please e-mail me with your full name and credential as
you would like it to appear on the certificate. If you have not yet
registered, please include this information on your registration sheet.

Thank you,
Katherine Endy
endyk@mmc.org

Administrative Associate
Center for Psychiatric Research/PIER Program
315 Park Ave
207-662-3362

www.preventmentalillness.org

August 28, 2006

Hi Foster- I apologize if you have received this twice, but it appears my first e-mail is lost somewhere in cyberspace! We finally have our adolescent IOP program up and running, and are looking for a 2-3 day workshop for 2-3 staff members on multifamily group therapy sometime late fall or winter. We have $ and can travel. Any ideas? Thanks so much. Matey Barker

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August 25, 2006

Hi, your page about MFGT is great. I am running a MFG for families of people with eating disorders and wondered if you know of any good resources on this topic. Thanks.

Katey Lund, LCSW

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August 2, 2006

Lewis,

I read and responded to your other email first, sorry. When I am not running an after-school program for a bunch of kids in Sabine Parish, I facilitate multi-family groups for kids in families through a Juvenile Justice grant that I wrote. The Office of Youth Services is trying to reform its system by providing community based services to kids and families BEFORE we lock them up. I have been doing the groups for a couple of years now. I see a need to train other providers in this model. I also work with a private non-profit called Project Celebration. They provide community based services to domestic violence, sexual trauma survivors, substance abusers and a bunch of other folks. We are partnering with the Northwestern State University Department of Addiction studies (Natchitoches Louisiana) to expand services and develop field placement experiences for the addictions students.

I could see a way to possibly get you over here to do some training. We might also be able to hook you up with the Office of Addictive Disorders, as they are also going through reform efforts. I know most of those folks, although I am not real thick with them as my work is more often with educational systems and mental health.

I would be interested in starting a chapter of NAMFGT, but I will need to research it a bit more. I have a tendency to overload my boat. I will go to the website and check it out. A workshop in Louisiana would be very neat, I think I can help you pull it off.

James Wagley

National Mental Health Association Resource Center seeks a Bilingual Resource Specialist (Spanish/English) to respond to inquiries regarding mental health resources and referrals. Candidate must have excellent verbal, interpersonal, and written communication skills in Spanish and English languages, strong computer skills, and be patient, mature, able to remain calm while dealing with a variety of callers, detail-oriented, well organized, and a self-starter. BSW or BA degree in psychology, social work or related field strongly preferred. Two years work experience in a mental health setting preferred. Experience with telephone referral or help-line a plus. Please send cover letter/letter of interest, resume and short writing samples (one English, one Spanish) to jobs@nmha.org. Please type "Attn: RM" in the subject line. No phone calls please. EOE

The Resource Center held three MFGT workshops in NC and SC this month and 112 professionals received Basic Training in MFGT. The evaluations were mostly good and everyone was exposed to the basics, tossed balls, climbed through hoops, held stuffed animals and tied a balloon animal. Some participants even learned how to make a balloon flower.

April 23, 2006

Dear Mr. Foster,

I am doing a case presentation on MFGT in my graduate level methods course in Social Work. I am interested in your effectiveness treating chemically dependent patients, can you refer me to an article that has tested MFGT in the treatment of chemically dependent patients?

Thank you for your time,

Elizabeth Geraghty, M.S.W. student at the University of Minnesota

Email: gera0067@umn.edu

I just stumbled across your web site. Dr Helm (Child/Adolescent Psychiatrist) and me (Licensed Family Therapist) have been doing multi-family group as the central focus of our adolescent inpatient program for the past 10 years. We started because of the incredibly brief stays that are now the norm and began informing families that if we admitted their child then they would have to also be part of the treatment process on a daily basis. Surprisingly, they began showing up and we were a little stunned with the work these families did in the group setting. Often we would leave group shaking our collective heads and wondering what just happened in there! Over the years we have come to expect such "therapeutic moments" and see how quickly families become engaged. Clearly things such as the "universality of experience" as well as "crisis driven events" work wonderfully at breaking through the typically entrenched systemic resistance. Anyway, I didn't intend to rattle on, just thought I'd say Hi.

I just read the article titled, "Multiple-Family Therapy: A Model for Social Worker's at Children's Homes". I am interested in purchasing the videotape as well as a copy of the orientation materials. I conducted a MFG for 2 years as part of a two-week residential program for adolescents in crisis. Despite my total lack of training, I became very enthusiastic about the group and am now interested in conducting MFG's from my private practice. Any guidance and/or resources are greatly appreciated. I am thrilled to have discovered the association for MFGT and the Resource Center.

Dear Mr. Foster,

We exchanged emails a few months ago. Thank you for your response to my inquiry about training opportunities for MFGT. I work for an agency called Child Guidance Resource Centers in the Philadelphia suburbs. The agency had a "family-based" program that serves children and their families by providing state funded in-home family therapy to children that meet the admission requirements. A few of my colleagues and I are interested in developing a multiple family group as an adjunct to the in-home family therapy that we provide. I have read several articles, including yours, informing me of some of the protocols for developing a group. I have also read much of Susan Dennison's book. I am excited about beginning this adventure and have confidence in the value of MFGT. One of the biggest challenges that the few colleagues and I will be facing is "selling" MFGT to the agency and the rest of our colleagues in order to establish a solid referral source. Do you know of any video material that could be used to help inform our agency and colleagues about the nature of MFGT. Obviously, I want to inform them well so that they can then inform the families that they are working with in a confident way about MFGT. If video is available, I think that it would greatly facilitate this teaching process. I would appreciate any information that you can provide or direct me to.

Thank you.

William Mayer

Child Guidance Resource Centers

2000 Old West Chester Pike

Havertown, PA 19083

484 454-8707

Williammayer@integrity.com

I will read through the articles and will likely send you one as well. I am probably one of the only therapists/psychologists who use Multiple Family Group Therapy in Montreal, Canada. The therapeutic group is for families of emotionally disturbed children and adolescents who have been referred to our Child & Adolescent Psychiatry outpatient department at the Jewish General Hospital. It is an open-ended group of five families. In some cases, the family can be multigenerational, including grandparents. I have been leading this MFGT for about 20 years (of course, not with the same families) with excellent results for most of the families.

National Mental Health Association Resource Center seeks a Bilingual Resource specialist (Spanish/English) to respond to inquiries regarding mental health resources and referrals. Candidate must have excellent verbal, interpersonal, and written communication skills in Spanish and English languages, strong computer skills, and be patient, mature, able to remain calm while dealing with a variety of callers, detail-oriented, well organized, and a self-starter. BSW or BA degree in psychology/related field required. Two years work experience in a mental health setting preferred. Experience with telephone referral or help-line a plus. Please send cover letter/letter of interest, resume and short writing samples (one English, one Spanish) to jobs@nmha.org. Please type "Attn: RM" in the subject line. No phone calls please. EOE

My name is JD Leslie, Individual Relations Manager for the Development Department, for National Mental Health Association. We are a non-profit organization that is located in Alexandria, VA. In the very near future we will have several job openings that we would like to post in your organization. We would like to know if you have a bulletin board or a section in your organization that you would post our job postings. Would you like us to e-mail you or fax you the list of job openings? What would be the cost to post jobs with you or is it free? Or do you have a website that we can post them up our self's? How long will the job openings be posted for? Thank you so much for all your help and we are looking forward to hearing from you.

Enjoyed the article on multi-family group therapy very much. I am a graduate student at Michigan State University and will be doing a presentation with my group members on MFGT. Is it possible to get a copy of the videotaped interview? Is there other information or resources that would be beneficial to our presentation that you are aware of? This presentation of course should be multi sourced......so any information would be beneficial. We love to have something creative to "capture" the attention of our audience for this 45 min. presentation. Anything you could give/send this way would be most helpful and appreciated. Please feel free to contact me via email, mail, or phone.

Great to see you on the web. I attended your training at the NCFADS summer school in Wilmington, NC, a few years back. I think you'll be happy to know that I've had a multi-family group up and running ever since. I use it as a part of my adolescent substance abuse IOTP. Thanks for all you do. Please let me know of any upcoming trainings.

Bless your heart! What an incredible MFGT website you have! Here I am, working on my dissertation topic and I find this. Some might call it coincidence, I say it's God working anonymously.

I am the mother of a 20 year old male with paranoid schizophrenia (childhood onset). Given the frustrations, difficulties and dead ends we have encountered with his treatment, I have recently returned to school to pursue my Ph.D. in Family Therapy. My dissertation topic is on multi-family group therapy with families of schizophrenics.

I only wish I had found this information when our son had his first psychotic break 7 years ago. Between research and helping Tony navigate his treatment path, I realize how our health care system is greatly failing these adult patients.

1. Are you aware of any family therapy research in schizophrenia being conducted in Texas presently....or anyplace else using MFGT?

2. Is there a particular family therapeutic model you have found to be more effective?

I am currently working on a chapter on chronic mental illness and the impact of families for Dr. Dana Comstock's next edition of her textbook, diversity in Development: Critical Contexts that Shape Our Lives and Relationships. This textbook is geared towards mental health professionals.

My husband, a medical administrator, and I are working on an article on the lack of private long term residential treatment programs for adult schizophrenics, based on our experiences from dealing with our son for the American Academy of Medical Administrators and will be presenting the paper at the AAMA 2006 conference in Atlanta. Quite frankly, we were astounded that private long term treatment seems to just stop after someone hits 19 years old. We know there are state programs, but they are poorly funded and the patients more involved.

Any direction you could provide would be greatly appreciated. This dissertation is not only necessary for my Phy.D., but it is part of my healing process.

Again, I can't thank you enough for your contribution to the field. Your work has positively impacted many families.

You might be interested to know that statewide implementation of psychoeducational MFGs are well underway in both New York and Michigan, with other sites also expanding use--five counties in Oregon, a research project at UCLA, VT, MD and NH, etc. Finally it's catching on. The interesting thing is that everyone has difficulty and skepticism about starting groups, and almost everyone gets to be wildly enthusiastic after about six months, worldwide--the experience is almost universal--hard to start, hard to stop is the essence of implementing MFGs.

Keep up the good work.

If anyone wants training in the model for severe mental illnesses, we're now gearing up to do more of that for well-organized agencies particularly.

Be well.

Bill

William R. McFarlane, MD
Director, Center for Psychiatric Research
Maine Medical Center
22 Bramhall Street
Portland, ME 04102
Telephone: 207-662-2091
Voicemail: 207-662-4348
Fax: 207-662-3300
mcfarw@mmc.org