Ellington

After Debra Wertz's son was diagnosed with bipolar disorder 15 years ago, she made it her mission to help other parents who were going through the same thing. Wertz has been working to help families for more than six years.

"I'm not a doctor. I'm not a therapist. I'm a mom," says Wertz, family partner at CARES Center.

"I realized that I couldn't change him; only I could change," she says about the long process of learning to cope. "That's when things started to get better."

The CARES center at the Mississippi Children's Home Services is a psychiatric residential facility for children ages 6 to 17 with mental illness, behavioral disorders or trauma. Wertz, 58, helps parents who have put their children in the program to understand what is going on and assure them that things will get better. She strongly believes that it helps parents to know that they are not the only ones going through the situation.

"One of the main things I've tried to stress is that not only the child but the parent also has to help with the problems," Wertz says.

While she originally wanted to pursue clinical psychiatry, Wertz has found an equally fulfilling job. She is able to talk to parents on a personal level with experience of what they are going through, especially when the parents may not be open to other staff members.

"We've really made a commitment to be family driven and youth guided," Wertz says.

The center created Wertz' position two years ago in an effort to strengthen the program. The newness of the position allowed her to develop it the way she saw it worked best. She calls parents regularly, and works to update policies and make the center more family friendly.

Along with her job as family partner, Wertz holds monthly support group meetings at the center for parents to talk about whatever is on their minds. She says that support groups are important for families. She also has another child, a daughter.

Prior to her CARE center job, Wertz worked as a parent educator at the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Mississippi for four years where she taught classes to parents and made presentations about childhood mental illness around the state.

Wertz, who is from Newton and lives in Ridgeland now, has not abandoned NAMI. She is still active with parent education there. She also works extensively with Mississippi Families as Allies for Children's Mental Health and the Planning Council and Task Force for the Mississippi Department for Mental Health.