Thresholds' New Freedom Centers were recently featured in a piece on ABC7News by reporter Karen Meyer. The New Freedom Centers are consumer-driven, consumer-recommended programs that assist persons with mental illnesses who are transitioning from an institution to life back in the community.

About Thresholds' New Freedom Centers:

Funded by the Division of Mental Health through capacity grants, the New Freedom Centers offer a wonderful opportunity for persons with mental illnesses to take an enormously positive step in their lives. 

In the process of creating the New Freedom Centers, consumers identified some of the common barriers and difficulties that persons transitioning into community-based care from institutions experience. The centers provide a drop-in location for socializing and networking. They are peer-run and peer-staffed, and include both structured and unstructured groups and programming. Many of the persons who are moving back to the community have lived for several years in institutions, and the New Freedom Centers can be an important source of encouragement, social networks, and programming to 

Thresholds member Otis discusses how the New Freedom Centers have helped him transition to living independently.

help smooth their transition. The centers are particularly critical as Thresholds and other agencies work with the state of Illinois to implement the Williams Consent Decree, offering hundreds of persons with mental illnesses the opportunity to choose community-based treatment that allows them to live independently.

Thresholds operates three New Freedom Centers, two in Chicago and one in Kankakee. The center on the south side is located across the street from Thresholds' Bridge South location and Integrated Healthcare Clinic (IHC). The IHC provides comprehensive primary care through a partnership with the UIC College of Nurses.