The State of Nevada has a new program that has allowed then to hire consumers as state employees. It is called the Consumer Assistants Program. This program is headed by Alyce Thomas-Thrash as the Statewide Consumer Services Coordinator for all of Nevada. Her staff is active in both Reno and Las Vegas. But before we get to know more about her staff and the program itself, let's go back and fine out how this program came to be, since having consumers work as state employees in Nevada is quite an accomplishment. (In terms of evolution, this would be the parting of the Red Sea.)

In 1996, when Psyche Social Rehabilitation became part of the services at SNAMHS, PSR director Kim Cantiero had been intrigued by a model used in California by Caminar, where they put consumers to work giving services to other consumers. So Kim had coordinated with her staff, Larry Raagas and Neal Reese, and put together a program where they could pay their clients on a stipend to provide services to other clients. They became known as peer councelors.

After wroking some time as peer counselors, the idea of the consumers becoming state employees began to unfold as peer counselors Bob Wolfe and Brian Booher met with Kim Cantiero and Chelsea Szklany to put together work performance standards for Peer Counselors as state employees. Though it was only just an idea at the time and there was no guarantee it would happen, Bob and Brian stuck with it.

Bob and Brian would soon work with other consumers to put together Nevada's first nonprofit organization provided by consumers for consumers, to show that they could kick ass in the service-providing department. The organization was called CAUSE (Consumers Against Unfair Stigma thru Education). Their creed was very powerful: "We have aquired the weapon of education and will wield it upon all those exposing their ignorance in our presence."

CAUSE had run its course for 3 years before the consumers moved on. Though the experiences and adventures of this organization were very memorable and rewarding, the project to become state employees was still the main goal.

Their success had caught the attention of Agency Director Jim Northrup, and he went about to encourage other colleagues of the usefulness of this project. Though not all staff were supportive of the idea of having consumers as colleagues, one individual who was very fond of the idea was MHMR Director Carlos Brandenburg. It probably would have been very difficult to put together this program without his support.

In late 2000, Caminar of Southern Nevada had been awarded a grant to hire consumers as contracted state workers. And at the very start of 2001, they did just that. Kown as Peer Counselors, they worked closely with other mental health professionals to provide quality services to the clients. Having the vantage point of both consumer and staff, they were able to perform their tasks with good insight.

This continued until the middle of 2002, when the grant had gone to the State of Nevada, and now the consumers could be called state employees. And that is how the Consumer Assistants Program for Nevada came into existence.