Mr. Wesley Alcorn This is Me

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1. 1. Psychiatric Times

   www.psychiatrictimes.com/p9807 - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/31/2003   Last Visited: 11/30/2005

   For Wesley Alcorn, the president of NAMI's national consumer council, however, the directed foray into involuntary treatment and commitment policies risks alienating the very people NAMI wants to serve, and detracts from the organization's broader advocacy goals. Describing himself as a pragmatist and a moderate, Alcorn said that those who oppose all forms of compulsory care are just as extreme as those who automatically assume that commitment necessarily equals adequate treatment.
   
   "Our movement is captured between the [2%] on the left and [5%] on the right, and [those minority views] dictate the arguments, and they set the philosophical debates," Alcorn said. "This kind of movement by NAMI [the Treatment Advocacy Center] inadvertently feeds into the worst and it just keeps this polarity going."
   
   Alcorn doesn't deny the need for changes in the law, but said the emphasis on commitment, both outpatient and institutional, and on mandatory medication and treatment plans will only distract attention from broader issues that need to be resolved. For nationwide, comprehensive reform of the mental health systems to occur, issues such as insurance benefits parity, health care system restructuring, voluntary access to community hospitals and care need to be resolved at the same time, he told Psychiatric Times.
   
   "What's ill is the system. The system is broken. Why do we have to tinker around with a broken system when all we're doing is working on symptoms?" Alcorn said. "If we're going to really reform, it needs to be done comprehensively at every level, because what happens when you just fix side effects or symptoms instead of the illness? The illness returns and the patient dies."
   
   Alcorn said that involuntary commitment laws have always been on the books, but that attempting to resolve the problems of the mentally ill by just addressing statutory schemes won't answer most of his concerns.
   ...
   Alcorn said.

2. 2. www.nami.org

   www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Sect - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/18/1998   Last Visited: 5/16/2008

   NAMI Wolf Award Given To Wesley Alcorn of Helena
   ...
   WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) today honored Wesley Alcorn of Helena, Montana, for his tenacious advocacy to improve the lives of individuals with serious brain disorders.
   
   Alcorn, 40, of Helena, Montana, has dedicated his life to ending injustices toward people with severe mental illnesses who struggle each day to reclaim full productive lives.His is a story of profound courage to overcome extreme odds since he personally knows the stigma and discrimination that is uniquely the experience of someone with a serious brain disorder.
   ...
   Alcorn, who currently serves as President of the NAMI Consumer Council, played a major role in exposing the misuse of Medicaid funds and patient abuse and neglect by the regional community mental health center headquartered in Helena, and has been involved in publicizing the shortcomings of Montana's behavioral healthcare managed care system.Alcorn also monitored and publicized the failure of the federally-funded Montana Advocacy Program to do its job of protecting and advocating for individuals with severe psychiatric disorders.
   
   "In all these activities, Mr. Alcorn has acted with disregard for the personal consequences to himself, and has earned the respect of consumers of psychiatric services and their families nationwide," said Torrey.
   ...
   In accepting this honor, Alcorn said, "We can no longer be satisfied or stay silent when literally millions suffer so very needlessly.We can no longer be satisfied or stay silent when the crumbs of incrementalism are offered up as evidence of progress-while things continue to deteriorate.We can no longer be satisfied or stay silent in the face of rank discrimination in the insurance industry, and we can no longer be satisfied or stay silent while our sickest, most vulnerable and defenseless individuals ride a new "ship of fools"-an inexorable march to homelessness, jails and prisons-or worse."
   
   Among his many accomplishments, Alcorn also has worked diligently to strengthen the NAMI Consumer Council, encouraging consumers to fully participate in NAMI programs, advocacy, and reform efforts.Well known for taking on the tough issues and for helping groups and individuals with their problems, Alcorn is much in demand for his advice and support, and has been invited to speak to advocacy groups in more than 30 states.
   
   "We must validate and defend all consumers as possessing intrinsic value, dignity and worth as Children of God, and citizens of the United States," said Alcorn.

3. 3. Consumers and Managed Care Reform

   mhselfhelp.tempwebpage.com/pub - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/1/1998   Last Visited: 9/11/2006

   "It's been a Fellini movie ever since," said Wesley Alcorn, Consumer Council president of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) and board member of the Montana AMI.
   
   Montana is an extreme example of the complications that can occur when the corporate sector meets the public sector. A few months after CMG took on the state contract, the company was sold to Merit, a larger BHO. In the last few months, Merit was bought by Magellan.
   
   "There were tremendous upheavals in the system when Merit bought CMG and when Magellan bought Merit," said Alcorn, who is among the consumers advocating on the state and federal level.
   ...
   Alcorn blames the mess partly on the choice of company. Consumers and advocates did not want the state to go with CMG because it had never run a public contract before. Their choice was Vista, which had -- and which had already invested in a substantial computer system. Though there was consumer representation on the selection committee and public hearings were held, Alcorn considers the process flawed. (So did Vista, which sued and got a $1.2 million settlement.) Flawed or not, he said, the selection process did come up with CMG but the state still got Merit, a company that had bid "and was specifically rejected."
   ...
   Alcorn has been writing HCFA in his capacity as NAMI Consumer Council president. "The bigger issue is how much oversight is going to exist with these waivers," he said. "This first foray has hurt the least organized and the most disenfranchised.
   
   "Instead of doing a pilot project, which the state now admits they should have, they did the whole state," he added. "These are just some of the things the federal government didn't take into consideration when granting these waivers."
   
   There has been advocacy along the way: consumers and advocates were on the selection committee, they sit on the board of the Montana Community Partners (the non-profit corpora-tion that oversees the corporate contract) and consumers work as advocates in the BHOs. But Alcorn does not think the effect of this input should be overstated.
   
   "Consumers, families and advocates were either tokenized or marginalized out of the process," he said.