What is Mental Illness?

Mental illness is a physical illness of the brain that can affect an individual’s ability to lead a satisfying life. Mental illness often results in substantially diminished capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life; often causing severe disturbances in thinking, feeling, and relating. It can affect persons of any age, children, adolescents, adults and the elderly.

I don’t have mental illness in my family, why should I be concerned?

Guild Incorporated’s services help contain the rising costs of health care, a concern of everyone. All of our services are geared toward helping people in the community whenever safely possible. Alternatives to hospitalization are cost effective to the community. For example, the average monthly cost at a Regional Treatment Center is $15,000. The average cost for a monthly stay at a residential treatment service like Guild South (see programs/services section) is $5,000.

How are Guild’s services developed?

People with mental illness have special strengths, interests, aspirations and abilities--the development of which is the key to recovery. Our programs are tailored specifically to the needs and wants of each individual served. As needs, priorities, and preferences change among our consumers, so do our program services. Not only does this help to assure the services we provide are desirable to our various customers, but it also helps to assure that our services are effective and consistent with leading practices in the field.

What does it mean to be "accredited"?

Guild Incorporated has made a commitment to continually enhance the quality of our services and programs, and our focus is on consumer satisfaction. In July 2003, Guild Incorporated was awarded a Three-Year Accreditation outcome for our Case Management/Services Coordination and Community Employment Services: Job Development, Job-Site Training, and Job Supports, by CARF, a private, not-for-profit organization that promotes quality rehabilitation services. The Three-Year Accreditation outcome represents the highest level of accreditation that can be awarded to an organization and shows Guild’s conformance to the standards established by CARF. An organization receiving a Three-Year Accreditation outcome has put itself through a rigorous peer review process and has demonstrated to a team of surveyors during an on-site visit, that its programs and services are of the highest quality, measurable and accountable.

How do the services of Guild Incorporated help prevent hospitalization?

In 2002, Guild Incorporated served 959 individuals, a 12% increase over 2001. News headlines in 2002 brought the community’s attention to the shortage of psychiatric hospital beds in the metropolitan area. Our Crisis Stabilization Services offered immediate alternatives to hospitalization for individuals experiencing a psychiatric or other crisis. Alternatives to involuntary hospitalization and court commitment were also created. Individuals participating in this service, engaged in voluntary plans to improve and manage their situation. Permanent housing with appropriate services helped reduce the risk that individuals will require other, more high-cost resources, including long-term hospitalization at a regional treatment center. Continuity of supportive relationships is one of the core values on which the earliest of community support systems were founded. We look forward to the increasing integration of psychiatric rehabilitation with health care in order to meet the needs of all those in our communities who cope with the most disabling of mental illnesses.

For more information about how to access the programs of Guild Incorporated, click here info@guildincorporated.org