GOALS FOR AMARILLO AREA MENTAL HEALTH CONSUMERS, 2004-2005
  
1. Establish a warm line and expand telephone service. We plan to purchase a multi-line phone system so that we can have more phone access to the Agape Center and AMHC.  We will have staff and 2 volunteers available to take calls during business hours.  After hours we will forward the service to a volunteer’s home so the service will be available in the evening hours and on weekends. We will promote the warm line service in both of our outreach brochures.
2. Translate our current brochures into Spanish and print, distribute at Hispanic community sites.  We have a community volunteer who will do the translation and plan to have this goal met by December, 2004
 
3. Increase hours of operation for the Center by opening on Tuesday and Thursdays 12:00pm-4:pm  We will begin this in November.
 
4. Begin business ventures starting with Art Posters and tapestries made by consumers.  We will take photos of paintings and drawing by consumers and have them printed into poster form. Hand made tapestries, or fabric collages will be created and marketed to interior designers. We will market these items through our web site, and offering them to retail stores. Twenty percent of the sales will go to AMHC, and the rest to the artist. We plan to have them marketable by December in time for the Christmas season.
 
5. Set up an Advocacy team for both individual and systems advocacy. This team will work as personal advocates for individuals having difficulty receiving services in the Amarillo Area. We will work to improve services in the community through letter writing, visiting with local policy makers, state legislators and our national representatives.  We will measure our success on a case by case basis, and by improvement in the mental health services. 
 
6. Recruit volunteers from the community to teach classes and help with projects. We will ask for volunteers through the local college and university to hold classes on mental health issues, art therapy, music therapy and topics relevant to community living issues.  We will be utilizing volunteers for our fundraising projects, and Celebration Recovery event.
 
7. We will begin work on employment bank by linking with local employment and rehabilitation agencies and sending out information on hiring mental health consumers. We will actively help people find employment and offer peer support to them as they work. We will make use of our computer lab, and build resources related to employment.
 
8. Relocate the Agape Center to a larger building to facilitate growing needs of consumer membership. We will have a committee research available spaces in town. We need at least two large rooms, 4 or 5 office spaces and the building must be handicap accessible. It will need to be on a city bus route. The committee will report to the Board of Directors on it’s progress each month until a space has been located.  We will work on fundraising:  the sale of cookbooks, and art prints to help fund this project. Also write additional grants for funding. We hope to accomplish this goal by the end of this grant period

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