Montrose Counseling Center, Inc. [MCC] is accepting proposals to design and develop a MySQL database with an open source Windows interface application.  The program will be utilized for centralizing client records and implemented at our site as well as packaged for distribution and implementation by other state funded service providers.  The application shall be designed to efficiently record and store individual contact, financial and pertinent treatment information; as well as provide mechanisms to query and produce legible reports on service utilization/delivery and standard fiscal procedures.

The complete RFP package consists of the three (3) following components:

Continuum Project RFP 2010 [PDF] 1.55 MB

Continuum Project Submission Form [DOC]

Decipher Files and Source Code [ZIP] 13.8 MB

UPDATES:

Amendment to RFP – 9/9/2010 [PDF]

MCC announces its GLBT Cultural Center Logo Contest. One design will have the honor of being chosen by our judges to be the official brand of our GLBT Cultural Center and a true focal point for Houston’s GLBT communities.

> Official Contest Rules [PDF]

To enter, submit your original logo design by email before the midnight deadline on Tuesday, October 14th that includes:

1. Your name, age, postal address with ZIP code, phone number and email address.
2. One EPS file of the design in resizable vector format.
3. One high resolution JPG file, sized to 1000 x 1000 pixels.

General guidelines:

• Contest is limited to individuals age 18 or over. Businesses and professional firms may not enter.
• Design must incorporate the words “GLBT Cultural Center”
• Design must look good in color or black and white, large or small
• Halftones are not advised. Gradients may be used if created in a vector graphics program.
• Design must be 100% original! Use of copied, derived and copyrighted material will disqualify the entry.
• Individual designers may submit more than one entry.

Prize

One winning designer will receive two (2) Southwest Airlines roundtrip “green passes” (nonrevenue must ride passes).  Restrictions apply.  See Official Rules.  We will also announce the winner on our Facebook fan page and website with a display of the winning design.

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GLBT Cultural Center Calendar

Featured News

• Request for Proposals: Continuum Project
• MCC Challenges Designers for GLBT Cultural Center's New Winning Look
• Statement Regarding a California Judge's Ruling That Proposition 8 is Unconstitutional
• Montrose Counseling Center Convenes Summit for Homeless GLBTQI Youth Stakeholders
• Dignity is a Priority for August Employee of the Month
• Few Chemical Dependency Treatment Programs in U.S. Offer GLBT-Specific Care
• Impact of Social Shaming May Result in Greater Risk for HIV Infection
• Seniors and the Disabled Urged to Register with 211 Before Disaster Strikes
• State-Funded Mental Health Services in Jeopardy of Losing Support
• Save the Date

• Volunteer Opportunities
• Volunteer Application
• Donate Now Online – Safe and Secure!
• More Ways to Give
• Employment Opportunities

All of the above links take you to our full web site.  Some devices may not be suitable for viewing this content.

GLBT Cultural Center Quick Links

• Calendar of Events
• Reserve Space for an Event
• Meeting Room Reservation [pdf]

Community Programs

• SPRY
• HATCH Youth
• Cyber Center
• Gay & Lesbian Switchboard Houston
• Community & Continuing Education
• HIV/STI Prevention Outreach & Community PROMISE
• HIV Interpreter Services

Behavioral Health Services

• LIFE Counseling
• HIV/AIDS Counseling
• Anti-Violence Program
• Chemical Dependency Treatment
• Case Management
• Support Groups
• Safe Zones Project

All of the above links take you to our full website.  Some devices may not be suitable for viewing this content.

Montrose Counseling Center, Inc.
401 Branard Street, 2nd Floor
Houston, Texas 77006
View Google Map

Telephone

713.529.0037	Main
713.529.3211	24-Hour Crisis Line / Gay & Lesbian Switchboard Houston
713.526.4367	Fax
832.413.6192	Videophone (hearing impaired)
866.327.7477	Voice for Hearing (hearing impaired; toll-free)

Email

Click here

Email is not monitored 24-hours per day. For urgent needs please use telephone contacts.

To report problems with this website, please click here.

Business Hours

Monday – Friday, 8 a.m. – 7 p.m.

Please bring your own USB device, such as a flash drive, if you need to save files or documents. You will need to bring your own headset if you plan to listen to audio or video on the terminals.

HOURS OF OPERATION

Summer Hours Notice
From July 13th through August 24th, Tuesday hours are 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Monday	5:30 – 7:00 p.m.
Tuesday	10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Wednesday	5:30 – 7:00 p.m.
Thursday	3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Friday	5:30 – 7:00 p.m.

Access is also available during certain scheduled HATCH and SPRY activities for participants of those programs.

Volunteers Needed!
MCC needs volunteers to help with the Cyber Center. Anyone with basic computer skills and available daytime or evening hours is encouraged to apply. Please download and complete a volunteer application and select the check box marked “Cyber Center.” Please include your hours of availability. You may email your application or deliver it to MCC, 2nd Floor.

Volunteer Application  DOC PDF

This program is made possible by

MCC Executive Director Ann J. Robison, PhD, says that the agency has no current plans to provide shelter or transitional housing in its scope of youth services. MCC’s youth programs include partnering with a licensed foster care agency, as well as other organizations and Child Protective Services to try to get GLBTQI homeless youth off the streets and into shelter, foster home or back home, so we do see the need on a regular basis and want to help convene other stakeholders. “We have become aware of several groups who are currently serving GLBTQI homeless youth, have expressed an interest in doing so, or are preparing to offer shelter or transitional housing,” says Robison.

By convening the summit in August, “our goal is to get all the parties together so that we can share what we do and learn from one another. Our hope is that we can initiate collaborations so that well-meaning groups aren’t duplicating services, reinventing services already in place, competing for scarce community resources, and that we maximize all our groups’ services to this underserved population,” she says.

“Youth who leave home are at a greater risk of becoming homeless, using street drugs, and becoming the victim of violence, not to mention putting themselves at higher risk for HIV should they find their only source of income to be survival sex,” says D.L. (Deb) Murphy, Youth Services Specialist at Montrose Counseling Center.

Right now, youth have very limited resources, especially if they are under the age of 18. That’s because they legally are not able to sign a contract unless a court has ordered that they are emancipated from their parents. They cannot apply for public assistance for health care, housing, food stamps or transportation. They cannot sign a lease. If they have been kicked out of their home, they can try to seek assistance from Child Protective Services (CPS) claiming abandonment, but that process takes time, and CPS already is overburdened with teen-age homelessness. As the youth approach the age of 18, they are harder and harder to place, which means they have only one other resource, Covenant House, a faith-based organization with a poor record of serving GLBTQI youth. Many youth choose to live on the street instead of conforming to the shelter’s strict guidelines.

“Sadly, many youth opt to live on the street because they actually think it’s safer than living at home,” says Murphy, who has worked with GLBTQI youth for more than ten years. The youth have told her horror stories about how they were treated by their own family members.

Murphy runs the HATCH program. On Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays, HATCH provides a safe, affirming social environment for GLBTQI youth, ages 13-20, to become responsible citizens and positive contributors to society.

She reaches into a stash of underwear and socks that she has on hand for the ones who are released from Pam Lychner State Jail. “These folks are cut loose and told they can’t even take their dingy gray underwear with them, yet they are supposed to figure out how to rejoin society?” she asks, knowing they have a tough road ahead.

Bueno usually meets with the inmates in the jails and prisons prior to their release so they learn how to help themselves get their basic needs met. Most of her clients are HIV positive and have a dual diagnosis of chemical dependency. If they currently are behind bars, we can prove their residency and their income, so we can get them registered in the Centralized Patient Care Data Management System (CPCDMS). Registration is required for anyone who receives Ryan White Care Act funding, whether it’s for housing, transportation, medical care, prescriptions, or other necessities.

Bueno recalls a young man she helped several years ago, who is now sober and gainfully employed, “I remember he didn’t have an appointment but he knocked on my door and told me I had to go out into the parking lot with him. Once outside, he gestured at an old clunker of a car and beamed, ‘Ms. Francis, I don’t need bus tokens anymore!”

One of the reasons it is so important to provide culturally affirming services is because our clients may not feel safe to talk openly about all the gritty details of their drug and alcohol use. For example, they may have  exchanged drugs for sex or participated in group sex at a bath house. Maybe the only place they know where to meet others in the community is at the bars. Those who are HIV+ may not feel comfortable talking openly about their status in other treatment environments.

Everyone knows what it’s like to be the odd person out, and that’s not a conducive environment for recovery. If you cannot openly discuss what triggers your addiction, how can you get the help you need? Other mainstream programs may not discriminate, but that doesn’t guarantee that everyone else in the program or group won’t. When others are talking about their husbands or wives, will you feel comfortable discussing your partner, or having your partner participate in your treatment?  Will you have to explain GLBT culture, or will you censor yourself because that’s how you’ve learned to manage in heterosexist environments?

“Although it’s not an ideal coping skill and is potentially destructive, it is understandable that many in our community attempt to medicate the emotional pain they experience due to society’s marginalization,” says Andrea Washington, LCSW, Chemical Dependency Treatment Program Coordinator at Montrose Counseling Center. Being GLBT often means fear of rejection from the church, friends and family members. Losing those support systems leaves few resources for them to turn to when they are struggling with their sexual orientation or gender identity. Many attempt to suppress their feelings and focus that lack of acceptance through internalized homophobia.

The SAMHSA study found that facilities whose primary focus is both Mental Health and Chemical Dependency Treatment, like Montrose Counseling Center, are more than twice as likely to offer programs targeting the GLBT communities than those whose primary focus is general health care.

SAMHSA Administrator Pamela S. Hyde, J.D., says, “The treatment community needs to work with all segments of our society to ensure that Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender people, as well asmembers of other underserved groups, are afforded more opportunities for this kind of specialized care.”

September is Alcohol and Drug Recovery Month. If you’re ready to take that first step toward sobriety, give us a call at 713.529.0037 to schedule an intake. For more information about MCC’s GLBT and HIV+ Intensive Outpatient and Relapse Prevention programs, click here.

HIV Counseling Program Coordinator Keville Ware, LCSW, says the study results – which were presented at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna – are not surprising. “Many of the people we see have struggled with and are dealing with social stigmas that go way back to their childhood.”

The study looked at information collected by the U.S. National Institutes of Health-funded Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study, involving more than 1,000 gay and bisexual men going back to 1983. Some were HIV+ and some were HIV-. What they found was that “almost 10 percent of the participants had been victims of childhood sexual abuse, and nearly 30 percent had been the targets of gay-related victimization between the ages of 12 and 14, including verbal insults, bullying, threats of physical violence and actual physical assaults.”

Ware says that it’s not easy for someone to reach out for help, since many gay and bisexual men still feel stigmatized by their sexual orientation, in addition to the stigma of being HIV positive. According to Ware, “Our society still stigmatizes mental health care, creating yet another barrier when it comes to someone seeking therapy.”

Montrose Counseling Center provides GLBT-affirming individual, couples and group therapy for persons who are HIV+, along with prevention and case management services. For more information, visit our website or call 713.529.0037 to schedule an intake.

Following lessons learned during Hurricane Ike, the state has set up a database for those who require assistance to evacuate, for those who cannot drive, cannot arrange transportation, and for those who do not have a vehicle or anyone to help them. GLBT seniors who are isolated are encouraged to register. Those who are HIV+ and receive transportation assistance also are urged to register.

According to state emergency planners, the registration will give them an idea of how many people will need transportation assistance, as well as what type of help they’ll need. The most important thing is to plan ahead.

To register, dial 211. From a cell phone, VOIP, or if you have other trouble reaching the helpline, you may call toll free 1-877-541-7905.

The proposed cuts would significantly impact the Mental Health Mental Retardation Authority of Harris County (MHMRA), subsequently creating higher demand on other mental health organizations like Montrose Counseling Center. MHMRA is Harris County’s only public mental health center for the treatment of bipolar disorder, severe depression and schizophrenia. According to a Houston Chronicle Op-Ed piece written by Lillian Aguirra Ortiz of Mental Health America of Greater Houston, “approximately 400,000 adults in our area with other mental illnesses have to try and find services elsewhere regardless of their ability to pay for treatment.”

Montrose Counseling Center Executive Director, Ann J. Robison, PhD, expresses her disappointment that, just when mental health facilities were making strides in reducing the stigma of mental health, thereby increasing access to care, the state puts it near the bottom of its priority list. “The entire system will break down, and many of the people who need to be under psychiatric supervision to receive medication will be out of luck,” foresees Robison. She adds that it will mean that more people with mental health problems will be arrested and put in jail instead of getting the treatment they really need.

According to the Op-Ed article, “Untreated mental illnesses lead many individuals to cycle in and out of homelessness as well as our emergency rooms, jails and prisons. Lack of treatment also leads to an increase in the utilization of police… since law enforcement personnel are often called in to deal with individuals experiencing a mental health crisis.”

Ortiz says that services already are limited to the mentally ill, and cuts this extreme “will exacerbate what should already be considered a serious public health and public safety issue.”

Misfits Ball 12

Want to learn more about MCC and how our programs improve quality of life for Houston’s GLBT communities? Join us for Montrose Counseling Center’s The Secret’s Out in the evening of Thursday, October 7. The dinner and program are free for attendees, although we do hope to inspire you to make a donation in support of our programs. Rsvp is required by September 23. For more information or to Rsvp, please email or call 713.800.0872.

SPRY Socials in August…

• Thursday, August 12th, 4-6 p.m.  Join us for a potluck picnic inside! MCC will provide fried chicken. You may bring your favorite sides, chips & dip, a vegetable, salad, fruit or dessert.
• Thursday, August 19th, 1-3 p.m.  Movie Thursday – “I Can’t Think Straight.”  Starring Lisa Ray and Sheetal Sheth.

SPRY participants also are invited to join the HATCH youth at their Summer Film Festival, held every Tuesday July 13 through August 24. For more information about the Summer Film Festival, click HERE.

For more information about SPRY, please visit the SPRY website, watch this video, or call 713.529.0037.

• Friday, August 6: Join the hosts of “Queen of Queens,” the preliminary contest to find the first finalist for the position of Queen of Queens, at 11:30 p.m. at Chances, 1100 Westheimer. The contest is open to lesbians only.
• Saturday, August 7: Royce Wood Siebert, Natasha Nikole Siebert, & Craig W. Rae present a Casino Trip to Coushatta Casino & Resort. The bus will depart Houston at 10 a.m., arriving at Coushatta at 1 p.m. It will leave the casino at 5 p.m., arriving back in Houston at 8 p.m. To purchase tickets for $40 or for more information, please email chlo3260@yahoo.com, rcwood3hou@yahoo.com, or craigw_1389@yahoo.com.
• Sunday, August 8: Imperial Prince Scott Kenyon presents “Eat, Eat, on 8/8,” a box dinner and auction show, at 4 p.m. at George Sport Bar, 617 Fairview.
• Friday, August 13: Imperial Princess Susan Hayes, Alex Stroud, & Vixen Devereaux Morehead present “Well Blended” at 8 p.m. at Tony’s Corner Pocket, 817 W. Dallas.
• Friday, August 13: Join the hosts of “King of Kings,” the preliminary contest to find the second finalist for the position of King of Kings, at 11:30 p.m. at Chances, 1100 Westheimer. The contest is open to lesbians only.
• Sunday, August 15: Jenny LaRue presents the Jenny LaRue Show at 7 p.m. at Brazos River Bottom (BRB), 2400 Brazos St.
• Friday, August 20: Join the hosts of “Queen of Queens,” the preliminary contest to find the second finalist for the position of Queen of Queens, at 11:30 p.m. at Chances, 1100 Westheimer.
• Friday, August 20: Viscountess XXVI Jody Travis and Jack Naderhoff present “Summertime” at 10 p.m. at Brazos River Bottom (BRB), 2400 Brazos St.
• Saturday, August 21: Don’t miss the Finale & Crowning of the Queen of Queens & King of Kings, at 11:30 p.m. at Chances, 1100 Westheimer.
• Sunday, August 22: Duke XXVI Cubby Christopher presents “High School Memories: The Good & The Bad” at 7 p.m. at Tony’s Corner Pocket, 817 W. Dallas.

Sunday, August 29: Grand Duke XXVI Blair Fullerton presents “Malice in Wonderland” at 7 p.m. at Brazos River Bottom (BRB), 2400 Brazos St.

Be sure to link your Kroger Plus Card to MCC’s Neighbor to Neighbor account, and we will receive a donation based on your purchases. Even if you’ve previously linked your card, you must re-link your account every summer in order for the next year’s purchases to support MCC. Please print this card and present it to your checker the next time you shop at Kroger.

If Randalls is your favorite neighborhood grocery store, you can support MCC through the Good Neighbor Program by linking your Remarkable Card to MCC’s account. To get started, print the provided card and present it to the checker on your next trip to the store. After you link your account, MCC will receive 1 percent of all the qualified purchases you make, and there is no need to re-link your account every year.