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CHOICE seeks consumer Board Members
One of the most important ways the community can contribute to the continued
success and growth of a nonprofit agency is through volunteering, and there is
no more important volunteer position than that of Board Member. Every charitable
organization has a Board of Directors responsible for fiscal oversight, policy,
and governance.
It is common in Board development to seek members with
particular skills: accounting experience, for example, or fundraising ability.
CHOICE has an additional challenge. As a peer-run agency, we must maintain a Board
composed of at least 51% peers.
A
peer is defined as:
 A
psychiatric label and prejudice associated with it.
Determination
by other (e.g. relatives, service providers) to lack competency and negative valuation
as a result of diagnosis.
Discrimination
from family, friends, treatment providers and society in general
Major
life disruptions such as homeless, repeated unemployment, extended isolation,
loss of important relationships, childhood and adult trauma, loss of civil liberty
through institutionalization or other forms of confinement.
Major,
protracted experiences such as disabling fear, anxiety, depression, hopelessness,
helplessness, stemming from having a diagnostic label or from traumatic life events
and inhumane mental health treatment.
Significant
positive altered states associated with energy, creativity, spirituality, and
other like phenomena.
For a further discussion of the peer principle, click
here. Board Members who choose to be identified as peers are not identified
as such outside of the privacy of Board meetings without their consent.
One’s
experience of mental illness as defined above need not have been recent; the life
disruptions alluded to may have occurred years ago. But they leave a lasting mark,
and people who have experienced the pain, loss and discrimination that a diagnosis
of mental illness can engender may seek to turn that negative experience into
a positive contribution to the community. Service on the Board of Directors of
CHOICE is just such an opportunity. If you, or someone you know, has personal
experience of mental illness and would like to join our Board of Directors, please
contact us.
CHOICE
of New Rochelle, Inc.
420 North Ave.
New Rochelle, NY 10801-4105
Phone: 914 576-0173
Fax: 914 576-0178
E-mail: info@choicenr.org
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