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07/17/2006

George Thomas, Focus on Consumer Recovery

 

My lifelong love of asking questions and looking for answers led me to look for a career in research. I received a PH. D. in social psychology in 1979 from the University of Kansas and came to the Institute in 1986. Here my belief in the importance of giving people more control over their lives has led me to look for ways to empower persons with mental illness and their families.

I joined NAMI Hillsborough in 1987 to better understand the family perspective and became president of the affiliate because I saw an opportunity to help. I served on the Board of NAMI Florida for over 10 years for the same reason. Through a contract between NAMI Hillsborough and DCF I was able to develop a speaker program and a respite program. The Speaker Program gives people with mental illness a chance to share what they’ve learned about coping with mental illness and moving forward in other areas of their life. The Respite Program provides a few hours of 1 to 1 support a month. People can use the program to get companionship, cooking, cleaning, transportation, anything they need that can be purchased for $9 an hour and doesn’t require professional training. They can find someone to work with them or ask NAMI Hillsborough to find someone.

In recent years at the Institute my work has focused on creating resources to help people with mental illness write recovery plans. Recovery plans are written descriptions of how people are going to make their lives better both by coping with their illness and by moving forward in other areas. Instead of making specific suggestions, Most of the materials I have created for this program describe different ways of looking for opportunities, things we can do that are different—in some way—from what we are doing. These different ways of looking for opportunities include but are not limited to becoming more aware of their core values, taking a closer look at what their life is like now, becoming more open to the possibility of doing something different, and thinking about different types of changes. I expect people creating recovery plans to find answer that neither I nor anyone else would be able to find for them.

George can be reached by telephone at 813-974-1934 or via e-mail at thomas@fmhi.usf.edu.