• Alyssum, Vermont’s only peer respite, began its search for a new leader to replace founding director Gloria van den Berg. An ad for the Rochester-based position appeared in January, calling for someone with “lived mental health experience” and the ability to work “in a collaborative peer support environment.”
• Sandra McGuire became chief executive officer of Howard Center, Chittenden County’s community mental health center, on June 1, following the retirement of Bob Bick, who spent a decade in the role. McGuire served for ten years as Howard Center’s chief financial officer.
• In March, Governor Phil Scott appointed a new commissioner for the Vermont Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living. Monica White had stepped down from the position in January after three years of service. Her successor, clinical psychologist Jill Bowen, previously led the Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual Disability Services.
• No bidders responded to the Vermont Department of Mental Health’s March request for proposals for a two-bed “staff-secure residential treatment program” for “individuals who may have histories of engaging in violent behavior, behaviors that have made living in less restrictive settings unsuccessful, and historical medication nonadherence outside of hospital settings.” The state reissued the RFP in May, and it will close again in June.
• Groundworks Collaborative announced plans to raze Brattleboro’s Morningside House, which had operated as a shelter from 1979 until the 2023 murder of one of its staffers, and to build a new, “safer” 40-bed facility on the site.
• In Vergennes, the Vermont Department for Children and Families will build a 14- bed locked youth treatment facility on the site of the old Weeks School for Juvenile Delinquents, which shuttered in 1979. The new project will replace Essex’s scandal-plagued Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center, which closed in 2022. DCF shelved an earlier plan for a six-bed “secure group home” for justice-involved children in Newbury.
• New legislation allows out-of-state social workers to begin practicing upon moving to Vermont without earning a new license. The law made Vermont the ninth member of the interstate Social Work Licensure Compact; Maine also joined in April.
• In consultation with Vermont Psychiatric Survivors, NAMI-VT, Disability Rights Vermont, and other organizations, DMH will develop guidelines for municipalities on best practices for mental health responses for use by emergency medical technicians, firefighters, and police officers.
• U.S. Rep Becca Balint of Vermont introduced the MEND Act, which would send mobile mental health crisis units to areas where major emergencies or natural disasters have taken place.
• Vermont’s new statewide mobile crisis service started in January. Crisis Program Director Jeremy Therrien counted 125 encounters in its first month, 143 in its second, and “a minimum of 158” in March.
• Legislators revised the state’s motel voucher program, imposing a 1,100-room cap and an 80-day limit during the warmer months, as well as new restrictions that will limit eligibility to households that satisfy certain conditions (such as having a disability or a child) even during the winter. The state’s annual budget allocated $44 million for the program and another $10 million to fund “emergency shelters” between December and March for homeless Vermonters who will not qualify for motel rooms.