The Mental Health Association of Portland is a 501 C 3 not-for-profit organization with no paid staff and governed by an all-volunteer board.  The organization is funded through individual donations and receives no government or corporate funding.  The organization maintains a larger advisory council for individual advocacy tasks.

For an inventory of our past and present projects, click the button above RECENT PROJECTS.

Mental Health Association of Portland
PO Box 3641 Portland, Oregon 97208

A 501 (c) 3 nonprofit organization – tax identification 20-0138570. All board members of the Mental Health Association of Portland can be contacted via email at info@mentalhealthportland.org

We do not give individual advice, provide direct services, keep medical records.

BOARD MEMBERS

Roy Silberstein was born in New York City, grew up there, and attended public schools, kindergarten through City College of New York.
At 20 he moved to Madison, Wisconsin for public graduate school at the University of Wisconsin, and later worked for the University.

At 30 he moved to San Francisco where he nurtured his common-law-wife with fatal illness and attended more public graduate school at University of California – Berkeley.

At 40 he moved to Los Angeles. At 41 he moved to New York City. At 42 he moved to Berkeley.

At 44 he moved to Portland and continues to live there. He has been a volunteer with Mind Empowered, Inc., NAMI of Multnomah County, the Oregon Advocacy Center. In 2003 he co-founded the Mental Health Association of Portland. At 62 he is a grants writer for Diversified Abilities, a nonprofit organization located in Clackamas County.

Will Hall was diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent a year in San Francisco’s public mental health system. After trying medications and other treatments, Will found he was able to recover and learn to live with his difficult mental states through peer support, holistic health, nutrition, yoga, and meditation, rather than conventional treatments and diagnosis. He went on to become a leading mental health advocate who has spoken and organized internationally for mental diversity and change in systems of care.

Will is co-founder of the Western Massachusetts support and activism community Freedom Center, which offers groups and holistic alternatives such as acupuncture and yoga, and on the coordinating collective of The Icarus Project, bringing together people outside the view of disorders and illness. Will received the Disability Advocacy Award from the Center for Independent Living in Amherst MA for his work, was a featured philanthropic project by Forbes magazine, and has consulted on mental diversity in Argentina and Peru for Mental Disability Rights International. He has appeared in the New York Times, National Public Radio, and was profiled in the Newsweek magazine article “Listening to Madness.” Will is host of the FM community radio show Madness Radio, heard on KBOO and syndicated on the Pacifica FM network, and organizing a new initiative in Portland Oregon, Portland Hearing Voices.

Will is a counselor in private practice who sees clients in his Portland office and by phone/Skype. Find out more about what Will is doing at www.willhall.net, www.madnessradio.net, and www.portlandhearingvoices.net.

Will became a board member of the Mental Health Association of Portland in July 2009.

Jason Renaud is co-founder of the Mental Health Association of Portland and serves as it’s secretary and spokesperson. He has been an impartial and uncompromising advocate for the rights and dignity of persons with addiction and mental illness for over seventeen years. Over the past decade he’s helped inform over fifty media organizations and spoken before thousands of people about the value of treatment services, about understanding the illness and pursuing individual recovery.

Jason is interested in how large communities make decisions about social justice issues. As the former executive director of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Portland, he stewarded massive and public conversations about how mental illness and addiction services are provided in jails, prisons, hospitals and public clinics. As researcher for Compassion & Choices, a national legal and medical advocacy nonprofit, he helped increase membership by a factor of ten and revenue by a factor of five. He lives in North Portland with his wife and son.

Jenny Westberg is a freelance writer in Portland, Oregon. She currently writes for Demand Studios and blogs for a personal injury attorney. She also writes for Examiner.com as Portland Mental Health Examiner. For the past three years she has edited the Paragram, the newsletter of the Oregon Paralegal Association.

Jenny has a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder. During the last several months she has moved from isolation into involvement, advocacy, and discovering her own human dignity. She believes that mental health challenges do not need to hold you back.

Jenny joined the board of directors of the Mental Health Association of Portland in 2010.

Chris Shelamer-Terry is a former nurse, a volunteer for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, an advocate, and survivor who has come back from dissociative identity disorder (DID) and anorexia nervosa with a passion for helping others to achieve wellness.

Chris spent four and a half years in a court-ordered program at Dammasch Hospital, and at one time had 43 different personalities, or “alters.” It took years of hard work in therapy, but Chris managed to put together the pieces. She has been integrated–recovered–for 12 years. Chris now lives happily in Portland with her husband, Michael and five treasured cats, who are her partners in recovery.

See Chris’ recovery story here.

Chris joined the board of directors of the Mental Health Association of Portland in 2010.

Odelia Garcia has been an alcohol and drug counselor, serving primarily the Spanish-speaking community for over seventeen years. She currently works for the Multnomah County Parole and Probation office and with the Day Reporting Center. She is particularly interested in issues around domestic violence and will help represent the Mental Health Association of Portland and introduce mental health advocacy in the Spanish-speaking community.

Odelia joined the board of directors of the Mental Health Association of Portland in 2010.

Duane Haajata is the editor of Eyes & Ears, one of the nation’s widest distributed newsletter which is published by consumers of mental health services and for consumers of mental health services. Duane has been a consumer since 1963.

Duane joined the board of directors of the Mental Health Association of Portland in 2010.

Jeffrey Donohoe, CPA is a founding member of the board of the Mental Health Association of Portland and serves as it’s treasurer. He is an accountant for small businesses, nonprofits, families and individuals.

Michael Hopcroft is a published author of several books and writes the monthly column, Coming Up For Air, for Street Roots newspaper.

Michael joined the board of directors of the Mental Health Association of Portland in 2009.

Chris O’Conner, JD is a criminal defense attorney and works for Metropolitan Public Defenders. Chris serves as our liaison to the Albina Ministerial Alliance Coalition for Police Reform and Justice.

Chris joined the board of directors of the Mental Health Association of Portland in 2010.