CooperRiis Healing Community was honored recently with a 2010 Lilly Reintegration Award in the category of social support.

Tom Warren, CFO of CooperRiis, and Marlena Warren, director of admissions at CooperRiis, traveled to Indianapolis (www.lilly.com) to receive the award and speak on behalf of CooperRiis. &bsp;

The Eli Lilly Reintegration Awards have been recognizing outstanding organizations and individuals in mental health since 1996. Each year an independent judging panel reviews the applicants for categories including advocacy, clinical medicine, employment, housing, achievement, social support, and artistic contribution.

Ralph Aquila, MD, chairperson for the awards independent judging panel, spoke about the program: We say this every year, and its true: these award recipients are the best of the brightest.&bsp; Their tireless efforts are building the future of our nations mental healthcare, providing hope and an environment in which to heal.

Recipient of the second place national award for social support, CooperRiis Healing Community includes a 94-acre working farm in Mill Spring, a therapeutic community in Asheville, and six residential homes in the surrounding areas for continued support.

CooperRiis holds to the philosophy that living within a community and having meaningful work can help to restore a sense of self to individuals who have lost everything to serious mental illness. The organization’s nearly 110 staff members implement the therapeutic community model, serving 60 individuals at multiple residential sites, and more than 20 individuals living off-site in independent housing.

Virgil Stucker, president and executive director of CooperRiis, adds, We are honored and gratefully accept this award in the ‘social support’ category as validation of our efforts to bring true recovery to individuals with mental illness. This award further strengthens our vision for a future where individuals with mental illness are no longer seen simply as ‘chemical imbalances’ with ‘brain disease,’ but as complex and wonderful human beings who can recover by participating in therapeutic communities where optimized prescriptions for an array bio-psycho-social supports are available.”

CooperRiis was founded in 2003 by philanthropists Don Cooper and Lisbeth Riis Cooper after years of journeying through a fragmented mental health system looking for compassionate recovery based care for their family member.

CooperRiis, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, is a mental health recovery program that provides within its therapeutic milieu the elements of psychiatry, psychotherapy, substance abuse counseling, nutritional counseling, complementary modalities and life skills and employment training. Recovery outcomes are documented through rigorous measurement and indicate that approximately 80 percent of its graduates are able to successfully transition to normal living.

For additional information please visit www.CooperRiis.org or reach Virgil@CooperRiis.org.

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