Conference to cover community-based care of mentally ill

GREENVILLE, N.C.   (Nov. 22, 2004)   —   Carmen Hooker Odom, secretary of health and human services, will deliver the keynote address to local and state health care leaders who will meet Tuesday, Nov. 23 in Greenville to discuss strategies for caring for people with mental illness. 

The conference, titled “”Community-Based Care for People with Mental Illness: Building a Recovery-Oriented, Evidence-Based and Consumer-Centered System,”” begins at 10 a.m. at the Monroe Eastern AHEC Conference Center on the campus of Pitt County Memorial Hospital in Greenville.

Hooker Odom, who leads the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, will speak at 11:30 a.m.

Other speakers include Dr. Cynda Johnson, dean of the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University; Dr. Michael Lancaster, chief of clinical policy in the state Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services; and Dr. Marvin S. Swartz, professor of psychiatry at Duke University and director of the Duke Area Health Education Center.

The event is sponsored by the Brody School of Medicine and its Department of Psychiatric Medicine, the Office of Regional Health Services and the Eastern Area Health Education Center.

The Monroe Center is on Venture Tower Drive beside the four-story Venture Tower building.