Go Mets!

To end the summer with a bang, a few lucky Bridge clients got to go see the Mets play at Citi Field in The Bronx. Patricia Thackray, Director of Bridge Poetry Workshops for the past 25 years, orchestrated the event and The Bridge name was prominently displayed on the marquee. With summer now over, we are celebrating Recovery Month all September long and looking forward to Fall.

Criminal Justice Residential Initiative

The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) has selected The Bridge as one of five agencies for a new initiative to provide housing and services to men and women released from State Correctional Facilities. Through this initiative The Bridge will dedicate 14 residential beds to this special population. In addition to providing housing, The Bridge will offer mental health and substance abuse treatment, vocational and related rehabilitation services, and primary health care. The new initiative is the latest Bridge response to meet the needs of seriously mentally ill men and women in the criminal justice system. While the census in New York’s State psychiatric facilities is now less than 4,000, there are many more thousands with serious mental illness in the correctional system.



Seven years ago, The Bridge pioneered the Iyana Project with Bedford Hills State Correctional Facility in which a Bridge in-reach team works with inmates nearing release and provides post-release permanent housing and services. The agency also participated in the Frequent User Service Enhancement (FUSE) Program, a New York City initiative to provide housing to criminal justice clients. FUSE targets individuals through data matching that identifies people with multiple stays in both the jail and shelter systems, and places them in supportive housing. 

We are pleased to participate in this new initiative designed to meet the critical needs of an especially vulnerable population.

PROS Material

Check out our Personalized Recovery Oriented Services (PROS) flyer to find out more about PROS at The Bridge or give to a friend! You can read and download it below. 

Bridge PROS Program

View more documents from The Bridge

Bridge Picnic

Continuing the great tradition of making it a priority to get out and have some summer fun, on August 12th The Bridge will be having a summer picnic in Riverside Park for clients and staff. Organized by our summer staff of 4 graduate social work students from Columbia School of Social Work, we are looking to have a sizable group of around 60 clients and 7 client-volunteers to help work the event. Activities will include volleyball, softball, a scavenger hunt and lunch prepared by our own Upper Level Caterers, staffed by Bridge clients. Picnics are a summertime favorite, and this one is shaping up to be tons of fun. 

Columbia Social Work Students at The Bridge

Super Summer Workers (from left):

Jennifer Lehman, John S.H. Page, Jr, Dr. Peter Beitchman, Hillary Perlman, Alissa Sexton

Four graduate social work students from Columbia School of Social Work have joined The Bridge staff as summer workers. Energetic and full of enthusiasm, the Columbia team has been filling in for vacationing staff in our PROS Program (the rehab-focused recovery day program), leading groups (e.g. Wellness Self-Management, Coping Skills, Career Exploration, Social Skills) and providing individual services and support to PROS participants. They have also been enriching the summer by conducting trips to local cultural and recreational attractions and are planning two major agency activities in August: a client talent show and a picnic in Riverside Park, complete with a variety of sports activities and picnic games. Box lunches will be prepared by our own Upper Level Caterers, staffed by Bridge clients. The summer workers will be with us through the end of August, when it’s back to school for them to complete their graduate social work training. In our view, each of them has a very bright future in the profession.

Bridge Chemical Dependency Treatment Program for Co-Occurring Mental Illness & Substance Abuse

The Bridge Chemical Dependency Treatment Program for co-occurring mental illness & substance abuse is another part of our integrated approach to mental health. In 2001, The Bridge obtained a license from the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) to provide outpatient treatment to a special population: adults with co-occurring serious mental illness and substance abuse. While statistics indicate that more than 50% of people who have serious mental illness have a co-occurring substance abuse disorder, there have been few programs developed to provide integrated treatment for both conditions. The problem is compounded by the fact that two separate state agencies regulate and fund mental health and substance abuse services.  

The evidence-based integrated program at The Bridge, which offers a supportive, mutual-aid community, addresses both conditions simultaneously. The stage-wise approach initially engages clients around the concept of recovery (going beyond relapse prevention to include wellness and achieving life goals) and helps motivate them to move forward in the treatment process.

A significant benefit of The Bridge Chemical Dependency Treatment Program, in which 100 men and women are currently enrolled, is its integrated approach. In addition to integrated mental health/substance abuse treatment, the program provides on-site medical care, vocational services and mental health medication. Program outcomes are outstanding with more than half of enrollees achieving substance sobriety within a 6-month period. The spirit of the program is best evidenced in the moving graduation ceremonies that celebrate those who have achieved so much and who are taking the next significant steps in their recovery.

Poetry Month at The Bridge

To celebrate Poetry Month at The Bridge, the Bridge Poets are doing what they always do- writing, reading and work-shopping their poems! The Bridge Poetry Program provides clients with the ability to express themselves through an art medium that they are unable to express in any other way. The clients learn about themselves through their poetry, and their self-confidence and feelings of well-being are increased through their creative experiences. 


The Bridge Poetry Workshop meets twice a week and has been headed by Patricia Thackray, Director of Bridge Poetry Workshops, for the past 25 years. Recently the workshop has been creating a communal poem based around the simple act of one of it’s members inadvertently leaving their black coat in the middle of the group’s table. This poem was woven, amended, trimmed and altered by many minds and voices – all 19 of the members of poetry workshop. In this work, the poets illustrate how an everyday object can be imbued with meaning. 


The Coat
Without a pattern. There is no coat. There is no poem. - Scott Zwerin, workshop member

Why you forget about your coat—

dark secretive note?

Tossed with defiance on the long white table,

texturing light into darkness.

Shadow with its own shape,

body of land the spirit

left there to lean on.

Coded fragments in disguise:

Lifestyle of today’s distance?

Fabrication of my psychosis?

You ought to be wrapped round someone;

someone grateful for such a coat.

Instead, you lay spread-eagled on the table—

innards exposed—

not even a fur!

Poor coat:

can’t mend or fend for itself:

no eye for beauty,

no nose for fragrance.

Mindless (But hey, I’m not sure

what a mind is for—

are you?)

I imagine you to be made by a man.

like the one my father gave me.

He only wore it on Sundays.

I’d a feeling it was going to feel warm.

And it did.

Warm coat, warm coat:

You’re all I need,

all I need, indeed, indeed!

You could hide the inner me:

security blanket for the heart and lungs,

zippers and pockets to hide secrets in.

Such a Coat:

command it to rise

and it will!

Feathered and full as a majestic bird!

Restored:

no longer that old, faded image of myself.

Blessed Coat:

I’ll wrap you round me and we’ll fly off to Somewheresville.

Shadow, cloth, coat:

Windblown or thrown—

Awaiting the next moment,

Content to be here,

                              like a cloud,

                                                 a hill,

                                                        the warm sun.

The Bridge as a Social Work Agency

While Social Work Month has passed, we continue to celebrate The Bridge as a social work agency. On April 14th at 3:30pm, The Bridge will be hosting an afternoon reception honoring Rory Gilbert, LMSW,  the Director of Community Mental Health and Case Management Programs, as a Bridge Social Worker of Distinction, along with the entire PROS staff. We are also very excited to have the distinguished Merril Rotter, MD as the featured speaker. Dr. Rotter is a leading expert on providing mental health services to men and women who have serious mental illness and who have been in the criminal justice system. Dr. Rotter will be giving a talk on the topic of “Today’s Clients: Challenges From A to Z.”

The Bridge highly values the work that our social workers do every day to help clients lead better and more independent lives. Please contact Denise Gutierrez at dgutierrez@thebridgeny.org to attend this event. The event will be held at our headquarters:
248 West 108th Street, NYC

The Bridge Poetry Workshop

Bridge Poets from The Bridge Poetry Workshop meet twice a week to read, critique, and write poems. One of their discussion topics, that is timely for the holiday season, was the exploration of wants and desires as they pertained to their own lives. Their discussions grew into the poem, "I Want! I Want!" The Bridge Poetry Workshop now has a bound copy of "I Want! I Want!" in the museum collection at The Philadelphia Museum of Art as well as the Poets House.

A limited edition of "I Want I Want" has now been beautifully hand-printed. They are available for a donation of $50 or more per copy (while supplies last) as a meaningful holiday gift. To make your donation click here. In the “Dedication” section make sure to write in “I Want I Want”. Billing address must be the same as the shipping address for delivery. To give a different shipping address please contact Ms. Denise Gutierrez at DGutierrez@thebridgeny.org, or T:212-663-3000, ext. 373.

Personalized Recovery Oriented Services Programs

Personalized Recovery Oriented Services Programs (PROS) is a recovery-oriented program for individuals with serious mental illness. The Bridge launched PROS on September 1st of this year. The goal of the program at The Bridge is to integrate rehabilitation services in a way that facilitates the participants’ abilities  to achieve their independent living goals.

In PROS,  participants first identify their own individual Life Role Goals. Once a participant’s goals are identified (in life domains including relationships, employment, housing, education, spiritual and leisure time activities), the next step is to identify the obstacles that must be overcome in order to achieve them. Participants then receive the tailored PROS services that are designed to address the obstacles and promote success in assuming the desired Life Roles.

Initial reaction to PROS at The Bridge has been uniformly positive. The structure of the program, which uses small groups for learning, allows for individualized services that maximize the opportunities for participants to make rapid progress in achieving their goals. We look forward to sharing the outcomes of this important new program. 

September is Recovery Month

National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month (Recovery Month) is sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA’s) Center for Substance Abuse (CSAT), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This year marks the 21st annual celebration of Recovery Month, which honors people in recovery from substance abuse disorders, as well as those who provide treatment and recovery services, and promotes the need for treatment access and long-term recovery.

In addition to providing mental health programs and services, The Bridge has a state-licensed outpatient substance abuse program for men and women who have substance abuse disorders (members may also be diagnosed with mental illness) which is under the direction of Susan Kaskowitz, Director of Special Populations.

Susan describes the program:

Recovery Oriented Services at The Bridge offers members the opportunity to rediscover the meaning of living a productive life. Members allow us the privilege of sharing their hopes , aspirations and visions of who they can be. They form a bond with their fellow peers and program staff that support their process of self-discovery where much of what has been lost or destroyed can be rebuilt. Working in a community that supports recovery provides all of us with a blueprint of how to live. It is up to each individual to use it.

For Recovery Month, The Bridge would like to honor all of those individuals who are fighting the good fight and winning. You are our inspiration. We would like to send our heartfelt affection and best wishes for those who are still suffering. We are here when you are ready. All are welcomed."

Below are quotes from members of The Bridge's outpatient substance abuse program.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation: Reflection of a Summer Intern

The following post is a written by one of our summer interns, Isaiah Bartlett.

Isaiah (pictured in the middle) saying farewell to some of our clients and staff.

It is hard to believe that my summer has come to end an end when it feels like yesterday was my first day working at The Bridge. As many first days are, mine was one filled with nervousness, excitement, and uncertainty. My previous social work experience was at The Ali Forney Center where I provided case management services to homeless LGBT adolescents for my internship at New York University Silver School for Social Work. I was confident in my knowledge of homelessness and the barriers faced by this population, but I was unsure of how my experience with adolescents would prepare me for working with adults diagnosed with severe and persistent mental illnesses. Fortunately, I quickly learned that my past social work resume wasn’t what was important to the clients.

My experience working at The Bridge has been so overwhelming positive that I feel the best way to summarize my time spent here is with a story of something I refer to as a “Bridge moment.” It’s at least 95 degrees outside and Lindsay, another summer staff member, and I have just spent the past two hours touring The Bronx Zoo with clients. We are all exhausted and disappointed that we have to leave without getting to see all the animals. I’m walking with a client who has faithfully attended all of our summer trips, he’s telling me about his participation in a bird watching organization and how he’s always loved animals. He keeps his head down when he speaks and his hands remain firm on his hips; his mannerisms in contrast to the joy he’s expressing. He turns to me and tells him how meaningful the trip to the zoo has been and how important it has been for him to reconnect with nature. I stop him mid-sentence and point to giraffes in the distance; we were all convinced we would have to leave the zoo without seeing them. The client looks up at me, smiles, and returns to walking quietly with his head down. I wipe the sweat from my brow and realize that this is why I’m at The Bridge, that this is why we do summer trips; the clients are so much more than their mental illnesses, that they connect, that they smile, and they experience happiness, even if is expressed in ways that are at times difficult to recognize.

My summer was full of moments like this, Bridge moments, and because of this, I will always remember incredible staff and clients who made these memories possible.

Congratulations to our Peer Advocacy Graduates!

We are very proud of our graduates! From left to right, Deborah Jeffries, Alex Williams, Karen Frazier.

At the end of June, three members of The Bridge Peer-to-Peer Program graduated from the New York/Westchester/Rockland Advocacy Coalition (NYWRAC) Peer Advocacy Training Program in Mt. Vernon, NY. For 10 weeks our peers traveled to Mt. Vernon to complete 72 hours of classroom studies where they learned about mental health advocacy, the mental health system and heard stories about recovery from other peers.

Building on a highly successful Peer Recovery Project in 2007 in which two Bridge mental health consumers worked as peer facilitators in our Continuing Day Treatment Program (CDT), The Bridge established the Peer-to-Peer Group as part of the CDT program. Peer-to-Peer provides Bridge clients with information about peer advocacy including negotiating skills, listening skills and techniques to enhance communication. Angela Cerio, an advocacy specialist and Certified Psychiatric Rehabilitation Practitioner, facilitates the group with Rochelle Eisner, a CDT Team Leader.

The Bridge Peer to Peer Group with Rochelle Eisner (left) and Angela Cerio (right).

To further their understanding of peer advocacy, Angela presented the group with information about the NYWRAC Peer Advocacy Training program in Mt. Vernon. Karen Frazier, Deborah Jefferies and Alex Williams were the first three peers to sign up and complete the training. Every week the peers would return to The Bridge and share what they learned with the members of the Peer to Peer Group.

“I not only learned how to advocate for myself, but for my peers – to help them get the services they deserve and have a right to,” stated Karen Frazier. Karen was inspired to become a peer advocate from her experiences in hospitals where she saw her peers underrepresented. After completing NYWRAC training, Karen has started a group out of her Bridge residence, ‘Positive Talk’ where peers can discuss their positive experiences with the system and their recovery.

Deborah Jeffries was interested in a job in social work and was encouraged by Angela and Rochelle to participate in the program. “My favorite part about training was listening to people’s stories about how they survived and thrived in the mental health system,” she stated. Alex Williams, the third person to complete the training program, simply “wanted to do more” as a consumer.

Now that the peers have completed their classroom hours, they are going to intern at The Bridge. Upon completing their internships, their goal will be to set up and lead a peer advocacy training program at The Bridge.

New computer-assisted program to improve cognitive skills

In May we launched our cognitive remediation program in our Intensive Psychiatric Rehabilitation Treatment (IPRT) program. Cognitive remediation is an evidenced-based practice to improve basic cognitive skills such as memory and concentration using computer software and web based programs. The cognitive deficits our program targets are problem solving, processing speed, reasoning and logic, concentration, planning, attention, working memory, organization, and working memory, as well as, short and long term memory.

Ten members of our staff became certified as Cognitive Remediation Specialists and were trained in the Neuropsychological Educational Approach to Remediation (NEAR) model. They consulted and worked together on this program with Dr. Alice Medalia, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry (in Psychology) and Director of Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. Dr. Medalia is an international leader in the field of cognitive remediation and an advocate of recovery-based interventions that address cognitive dysfunction in people with psychological disorders. She has written Cognitive Remediation for Psychological Disorders, along with Dr. Nadine Revheim, Research Psychologist in the Program of Cognitive Neuroscience and Schizophrenia at the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research in Orangeburg, NY and Tiffany Herlands, PsyD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Rehabilitation Psychology at Columbia Presbyterian Eastside.

Groups meet twice a week in our Vocational Resource Center over a period of ten weeks. In the beginning of group participants discuss with staff what they previously worked on in the last session and decide what they want to accomplish for the current session. Group members then work individually on a computer with software and web based programs to practice their skill. The last fifteen minutes of the session are dedicated to “bridging”, which is done in a group setting. This refers to the process of generalizing cognitive skills and compensatory strategies learned on the computer to everyday life. To evaluate an individual’s progress within the program, pre and post assessments are given to each participant to measure their cognitive functioning.

Below are some screen shots from the computer programs that participants use to develop specific skills. An individual’s level of computer literacy is not a barrier to program participation, as all cognitive remediation programs are user friendly and only require the participant to ‘point and click.’
This exercise is called Stocktopus. The goal of this exercise is to trade items in order to attain goal items. This exercise targets problem solving, attention, concentration, and working memory.

This exercise is called Fripple Place. The user must use clues on the screen as well as those provided by fripples in order to place the fripples into the correct craters. This exercise targets working memory, logic and reasoning, problem solving, attention and concentration.

Cognitive remediation is on the forefront of rehabilitation; it is a program that helps participants with mental illness to improve their level of functioning in everyday life whether it be in school, work, social interactions or independent living. Kevin B., one of the participants states, “The group is fun. I feel much better about myself now.”

We’d like to thank the Fay J. Lindner Foundation for funding this program.

June Housing Highlights

20 new scatter-site beds to be located in the Bronx

These beds were awarded by NYS Office of Mental Health for chronically homeless adults who have a serious mental illness or who are diagnosed as mentally ill and chemically addicted. The program will provide quality housing and support services to ten chronically homeless men and women referred from city shelters and ten persons referred from Manhattan Psychiatric Center and Rockland Psychiatric Center. These will be scatter-site apartments in the Bronx, either studios or shared two bedrooms. We will begin leasing units this fall and anticipate 100% occupancy by the end of 2010. With these 20 beds, The Bridge will have 744 beds in operation in Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens.

Deutsche Bank to fund housing development activities

The Bridge was recently selected as a recipient of Deutsche Bank’s SHARE (Supportive Housing Acquisition and Rehabilitation Effort) Round V awards with $150,000 in grant funds and $75,000 in loan money over three years. These funds will be used to support upcoming housing development projects including our 60-bed homeless veterans project in the Bronx and our 60-bed Brooklyn program for young adults and adults with serious mental illness.

Special Note: During this past year (July 2009- June 2010) our agency opened 167 new beds.

Recognition for Integrated Health Initiative

Pathways to Wellness, a chronic illness demonstration project that provides intensive case management to individuals who are heavy users of health and behavioral health services, has received a Platinum Point Award presented jointly by Dorland Health and the Commission for Case Manager Certification. Out of 6 finalists, this collaborative project is the winner of The Disease Management/Population Health category which is "for the program that manages patients with chronic medical conditions in order to decrease exacerbations and improve quality of life." The Case In Point Platinum Awards is an awards program which recognizes case management departments and initiatives around the country that provide a superior level of medical management services.

The project, in which The Bridge and five partners collaborate under the lead of the Institute for Community Living, is designed to have participants enroll in a medical home in which they will receive comprehensive primary and preventive care. On average participants receive 4.2 interventions per month - with comprehensive condition-specific health education, lifestyle counseling and care management all a standard part of the patient’s wellness efforts. The hoped-for result will be improved quality of life of the participants and reduced costs of care. Pathways care managers and nurses coordinate this “feet on the street” project by reaching out to participants in Manhattan and Brooklyn, helping them manage their health and behavioral health conditions. This three-year demonstration project is an initiative of the New York State Department of Health.

Click here to read more about the awards program and to view the winners and honorable mentions of the other 24 categories.

Program Profile: SHACT

As of January 1, 2010, The Bridge has implemented a first-of-its-kind program, SHACT – Supportive Housing and Assertive Community Treatment, but before you can understand SHACT, let’s discuss ACT, Assertive Community Treatment Program.

ACT
This program was created to respond to the needs of people with serious mental illness who do not do well in conventional programs. The ACT program responds to these circumstances by providing highly individualized treatment, support and rehabilitation services to people in their natural living settings, usually where they live. ACT brings the services to the consumer instead of the consumer attending programs at the agency site. The program uses a multi-disciplinary team approach made up of psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses, social workers, occupational therapists, substance abuse specialists, vocational counselors, and a peer support workers. Each day teams visit consumers in the community and work with them to meet recovery goals set in their service plans (i.e. educational goals, employment skills and opportunities, improving family relationships); at least one team member is on call for emergencies. Services are not time-limited; clients may utilize the services of ACT for as long as they need them. The Bridge Act team is one of 43 teams in the New York City region and 78 across the state of New York.

SHACT
SHACT will be implemented by The Bridge in the Bronx. 68 clients will be enrolled in ACT and will be able to live in 68 supportive housing beds being created for the project. SHACT will offer an essential housing resource to ACT participants many of whom are in shelters, newly discharged from hospitals without housing or are living in substandard environments. ACT agencies across the New York City region will be able to refer ACT clients to The Bridge SHACT program in the Bronx to receive housing in addition to ACT treatment, support and rehabilitative services.

Not only do ACT and SHACT offer a solution to reduce psychiatric hospitalizations and visits to the emergency rooms, but they offer individuals an opportunity to live more independent and productive lives within our community.

Read More About ACT
For more information check out:
National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
New York State Office Mental Health