Families Empowering Families

Alice Maynard is awarded the Charlie Biss Child, Youth and Family Voice Champion Award for 2018!

The 4th Annual LIT Extravaganza on September 28, 2018 was the perfect place to present Alice Maynard with her Award.

History of the Award

In 2017 Charlie Biss retired after 30 years as the Child, Family, and Adolescent Unit Director at the Department of Mental Health. In his career, Charlie was an essential champion of youth & family voice in a critical part of our system of care. He was also a champion for our Family Run Organization, both publicly and behind the scenes.

In his honor, the Federation of Families’ Board of Directors wanted to celebrate and recognize an individual each year who also values, supports, and advocates for Youth & Family Voice in Vermont. So the Charlie Biss: Youth and Family Voice Champion Award was born.

This year we decided to present the award at the 4th Annual LIT Extravaganza with over 100 people in attendance to celebrate Act 264 30th Anniversary.

Alice Maynard: first recipient of the annual Charlie Biss Child, Youth and Family Voice Champion Award.

Alice Maynard has been a champion for families, family voice, entitlement to peer services, and a champion for family empowerment for the past 30 years. Alice Maynard is fondly known as the “Mother of the CSP process”. She exemplifies leadership in Child, Youth & Family Voice. She is the person who asks in every meeting and conversation without missing a beat, “what does the family voice have to say about this?”

Here is a wonderful quote from her nomination that says it all:

“without Act 264 Vermont Families would have no entitlement to coordination (a CSP)…and without Alice Maynard I do not believe there would be Act 264 legislation…without her 30 years of efforts to ensure it was followed, enhanced, and expanded…and without her decades of leadership for the Act 264 Board thanks to her role at DMH.”

Posted by bbytes on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2018 @ 7:07PM
Categories: News