Calling All Recipients of Mental Health Care! You're Invited to Join Cummins' Consumer Advisory Board
Are you currently receiving mental health and/or substance use treatment from Cummins Behavioral Health or another behavioral health care provider? Or are you a family member of someone who is currently involved in treatment?
If you are, then we would like to invite you to join our Consumer Advisory Board!
The Consumer Advisory Board, or "CAB", represents the interests of everyone who receives services from Cummins Behavioral Health. Members of the CAB meet regularly with Cummins team members to review policies and procedures, raise questions and concerns, and discuss how the consumer experience at Cummins can be improved.
In essence, the CAB helps us understand the needs of our community members and determine how we can best meet those needs. That's why we need YOUR perspectives and opinions!
Why Is the Consumer Advisory Board Important?
As a nonprofit community mental health center, our foremost focus is on the well-being of the individuals we serve. Our goal is not only to provide exceptional care to our consumers, but also to inspire hope that recovery is possible.
Because we are committed to our consumers, we want to give them ample opportunities to influence the services we provide. The Consumer Advisory Board is one of many avenues for doing this.
"We always give the CAB updates on what's happening across the organization," says Cummins CEO Amy Mace. "We review the strategic plan with them, which includes any new clinical programming, and we try to get them actively reviewing policies that can have an impact on them, not necessarily personally, but for the 7,000 people we serve in a year. What do they think about a policy? Is it consumer friendly? Are we being advocates? We listen to them every meeting and try to implement their suggestions."
The Consumer Advisory Board is an important mouthpiece for the people we serve, so we strive to make it truly representative of our communities. Factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconomic status, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, and disabilities or infirmities can influence a person's experiences with treatment, and it is important to us that the CAB contains individuals who can speak to the full range of experience across these factors.
"In order to better represent those served by Cummins, our objective is to increase the diversity within the Consumer Advisory Board membership,” says Dawn Pruitt, Director for our CCBHC federal grant from SAMHSA and our Community Catalyst state grant. “We are doing this not only to achieve grant-related objectives, but the greater goal is to have representation of those we serve from each county and diverse populations.”
How You Can Join the Consumer Advisory Board
You can request to join the Consumer Advisory Board if you fall under one or more of the following categories:
- You are actively involved in treatment at Cummins Behavioral Health.
- You are actively involved in mental health and/or substance use treatment at another behavioral health care organization.
- You are the family member of someone who is actively involved in treatment at Cummins Behavioral Health or another behavioral health care organization.
If you fit into one of these categories and would like to join the CAB, please contact Dawn Pruitt by email at dpruitt@cumminsbhs.org. Simply explain that you would like to join the CAB, and Dawn will get in touch to discuss the next steps with you.
Meeting Schedule
We have designed our CAB meetings to be minimally disruptive to members' lives while also providing regular opportunities to discuss important topics.
- The CAB meets once every 3 months (for a total of 4 meetings per year).
- Each meeting is 2 hours long.
- Meetings occur in-person at our Avon outpatient office.
- Members may attend meetings virtually if desired.
Compensation
As an expression of our thanks, we compensate our CAB members for their contributions in several ways.
- All CAB members receive a stipend for participating in quarterly meetings.
- Members who choose to travel to the Avon office for meetings are reimbursed for their mileage.
- A free lunch is provided for all members who attend the meetings in person.