To represent adequately the general public interest, it is crucial that the quality of citizen participation on boards of directors of community mental health agencies be improved. This can be achieved by providing board members, through training, with appropriate knowledge and skills. This article describes one such training program. (Author)

A conference in Washington, D.C., brought together health care professionals and people working on substance abuse issues to take a look at what four communities have done to use the health care system as part of a strategy to address substance abuse. The four communities are Vallejo (California), Santa Barbara (California), Little Rock…

The Minnesota Heart Health Program's Quit and Win smoking cessation contests occurred between 1982 and 1989. The contests used large prizes to encourage smokers to quit smoking. Evaluations indicated that the contests succeeded in recruiting relatively large proportions of smokers in entire communities, and abstinence outcomes were encouraging.…

The problem of occupational diseases must be addressed by social workers who are trained to actively work for changes on a social level. A training model is described, wherein graduate students organized a small community to combat and prevent Brown Lung Disease among textile workers. (DS)

This paper describes the multidisciplinary group therapy teams that provide services to older persons in board and care residences in the catchment area of Thalians (California) Community Mental Health Center. It reports on the manner in which the decision to form teams was arrived at, the process by which the teams were established, and the…

A paraprofessional training program designed to provide community controlled mental health services to the Woodlawn community of Chicago, Illinois, is described in this monograph. The neighborhood and The Woodlawn Organization (T.W.O.A), a self help project formed in early 1960, are described from an historical perspective. Some of the areas…

The upward economic flux of Pike County is having a dramatic impact on the traditional morals and values held by the established community. Drug availability has increased proportionately with improved highway systems, accessibility of money, and increasing numbers of youth with their own cars. Although 75% of the population live in isolated…

The Southern Rural Development Center (SRDC) at Mississippi State University aims to stimulate the creation of new partnerships to enhance rural communities' capacity to address key health issues. In 1997, SRDC hosted a conference to develop the following: partnerships among land-grant universities, the health sector, and local citizens and…

This report maintains that it is just as unacceptable to allow millions of children to die each year from needless infection and malnutrition as it is to let them die in sudden emergencies of drought and famine. The world now has the means to attack childhood malnutrition and disease on a massive scale and at an affordable cost. Four million…