At the MPS annual meeting in April, the Maryland Foundation for Psychiatry presented its 2010 Outstanding Merit Award to the Adolescent Depression Awareness Program of the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins.

The Board was particularly impressed with this outstanding program, which through student, parent and teacher education seeks to increase awareness of adolescent depression and bipolar disorder while reducing the stigma associated with these illnesses.

In addition, the foundation awarded Honorable Mentions to the Southern Maryland Community Network in Prince Frederick, which offers essential services to persons with severe and persistent mental illness, and to Helping Other People through Empowerment, Inc. Wellness and Recovery Center in Baltimore, which assists adults with mental illness in becoming empowered to rejoin mainstream society by increasing awareness of available resources through peer support.

The Maryland Foundation for Psychiatry established the annual Outstanding Merit Award for a worthy program in Maryland that accomplishes one or more of the following:

• Increases public awareness and understanding of mental illness
• Enhances the quality of care for psychiatric illness
• Reduces the stigma of mental illness

The award, open to the entire Maryland community, carries a prize of $500.

Related Links:

– Johns Hopkins Adolescent Depression Awareness Program (ADAP)
– Southern Maryland Community Network
– Helping Other People through Empowerment

Eugene B Brody, M.D., honorary director of the Maryland Foundation for Psychiatry, passed away on Saturday, March 13, 2010. As noted in the Baltimore Sun, Dr. Brody was “a globally known mental health figure who had been chairman of the department of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and later was dean for social and behavioral studies.”

A more complete obituary from LexisNexis can be found at AllBusiness.Com which chronicles his postgraduate work at Yale University School of Medicine and the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, his work during World War II as a captain in the Army Medical Corps serving as chief of the neuropsychiatric service in hospitals of the European command, through his work with America’s inner cities and much much more. He served as psychiatric consultant to the international military tribunal that conducted the war-crime trials of former Nazi military and civilian officials at Nuremberg.

Related Links:

– Eugene Brody Obituary, Baltimore Sun, March 17, 2010.

The American Psychiatric Association’s Psychiatric News for February 5, 2010, featured the Foundation’s Love From Depression outreach campaign. Besides Love from Depression, the article describes other outreach programs the Foundation has done and continues to do, ranging from public service announcements on radio, clinician meetings, and the Outstanding Merit Award.
Related Links:
– “Innovation Marks Foundation’s Public-Education Outreach,” Rich Daly, Psychiatric News, February 5, 2010
– Love From Depression
– Foundation Radio Ads
– Outstanding Merit Award 2010