NUKOLII — At a meeting of mental health workers from across the western
states, Hawai’i’s Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono vowed to protect the rights of the
state’s mentally ill and disabled, and to ensure proper delivery of services to
them.
Hirono said she will ask Governor Ben Cayetano not to support court
action by Alabama to challenge the Americans with Disability Act.
In
lawsuit before the U.S. Supreme Court, Alabama officials argue that a provision
on how state and local government implement equal access and opportunity for
disabled people is unconstitutional.
Alabama officials are also arguing
that Congress did not have the authority to implement the act 10 years
ago.
At Cayetano’s request last July, the state attorney general’s office
filed a brief in support of Alabama’s court challenge.
While she doesn’t
believe Cayetano wants to hurt residents through his actions, Hirono said she
wants him to direct the state attorney general to withdraw the brief.
“I
will be working with advocates (of the ADA), their lawyers, with the disabled
community, and regardless of how the Supreme Court decides, we in Hawai’i will
have in place state laws that will provide comparable protections to the ADA,”
she said.
Hirono made her comments at the 6th Annual Western Regional
Clubhouse Conference at the Radisson Kaua’i Beach Resort.
Attending the
conference were about 300 board members, staffers and patients from
“clubhouses,” or psychiatric rehabilitation programs,” located in the western
United States, Massachusetts, New York and Hong Kong.
The conference was
sponsored by the Hawaii Clubhouse Coalition, which is comprised of seven
clubhouses located throughout Hawai’i.
Hirono said there is no longer a
stigma attached to having a mental illness.
During the presidential race,
Vice President Al Gore’s wife, Tipper, admitted she suffers from severe
depression, Hirono said.
She said the clubhouses give mental health
patients hope for a better life, with the help of medication and the support of
family and clubhouse staffers.
Hirono said clubhouse staffers and patients
work hand in hand so that those with mental illness can learn to become more
self-sufficient.
Through the clubhouse programs, patients recive help with
employment, housing, substance abuse and life skills.
The Friendship House,
located in Kapa’a, serves about 100 patients each year, according to Jack
Yatsko, a program director for Friendship.
The other six clubhouses located
in Hawai’i are Hale O’ leua, Honolulu Clubhouse, House of Success, Hui Hana
Pono, Ko’olau Clubhouse and the Waipahu Aloha Clubhouse. They work in
conjunction with state facilities in serving the mentally ill.
The
clubhouses have proven to be a model for successful planning and development of
programs in Hawai’i, according to Dr. Linda Fox, the chief of the state
Department of Health’s Adult Mental Health Division.
All seven clubhouses
are part of the International Center for Clubhouse Development, which is based
in New York City. The group is a network of more than 300 clubhouses located
throughout the world.
Joel Corcoran, executive director of the Center, said
the clubhouses have “proven on a daily basis that people can live successful
lives in spite of their illnesses.”
The clubhouses focus on whatever is
“possible and what a person can do,” he said.
Corcoran said the Center and
the clubhouses are a “force for social change.”
And the clubhouses have
been successful because of the work of clubhouse staffers and because of the
willingness of clubhouses to work together.
For this fiscal year, the
clubhouses in Hawaii operated with $1.4 million from the state Department of
Health’s Adult Mental Health Division.
The three-day conference began
Thursday and ends Sunday.
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at
245-3681 (ext. 225) and lchang@pulitzer.net
