Alliance Alert: I remember a time several decades ago when it was unclear whether OMH’s PROS (Personalized Recovery Oriented Services) program model would be approved and launched in NYS. Today, over 34 counties offer this opportunity to support people to live independently, build natural supports and meaningful relationships, find and keep a job, succeed in school, secure preferred housing and advance their recovery, health and wellness.
This past Tuesday, well over 100 representatives from the greater Plattsburg community including local media, family members, legislative staff, OMH and the Alliance came together to celebrate the enormous achievements of the people there who provide and/or receive supports from the state’s first PROS program at BHSN.
I was very pleased and touched to deliver some remarks at this very joyous and moving celebration and very impressed at how BHSN and so many other PROS programs have moved their efforts beyond program walls into their surrounding communities. See below for details.
Great thanks to CEO Kathy Clark and VP for Crisis and Rehabilitation Services Paul Ferrari for your great heart-centered leadership and for all of the folks there for the tremendous success they’ve had in meeting their mission over the past 20 years!
Our Alliance team has long served as a dedicated partner in the technical assistance offered to PROS program under the leadership of NYU McSilver Training and TA Centers. For more, see here.
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BHSN Celebrates 20 years of Services Program
By Luca Gross Plattsburgh Press Republican October 13, 2026
MORRISONVILLE — Behavioral Health Services North celebrated 20 years of its Personal Recovery Oriented Services program with staff and clients Tuesday.
BHSN hosted the community for a lunch and live music performance by the PROS band Tuesday, Oct 13 at the PROS Learning Center.
Several speakers including former and current staff shared their experiences from behind the scenes of the program as well as participants who shared personal stories describing how the program supported them in their recovery.
President and CEO of BHSN Katherine Cook kicked off the event with a metaphor about a forest and the various trees at different stages of growth found within.
“Twenty years ago, Cross began with the belief that people living with mental health challenges deserve opportunities to grow, to discover their strengths, to build relationships, and to create lives that are meaningful and with purpose,” she said during her remarks. “Over these 20 years, this program has grown and evolved, shaped by many of you who have been a part of it. Some have been here since the ancient and earliest days. Others have joined along the way, and some are just beginning their journey.”
“But here’s what I love about the forest: there wasn’t one tree that was more deserving of its place than another. The ancient oak didn’t matter any more than the tiniest of sprouts. They were all a part of the forest, each growing at its own rate, at its own pace, and each contributing to the life around it.”
Cook introduced Vice President of Rehabilitation & Crisis Programs at BHSN, Paul Ferrari who lead the event introducing current and former PROS staff and participants.
The event’s keynote speaker, CEO of the Alliance for Rights and Recovery, Harvey Rosenthal shared his own personal experience with mental health and how recovery and advocacy changed over the years.
He called the people behind the program “pioneers,”
“This was the very first PROS in New York State. It’s amazing what that means,” he said during his remarks, “PROS was so controversial, people said it couldn’t be done. Medicaid wouldn’t allow it. The programs were afraid to start it. You took the first step for everybody.”
Rosenthal reflected on the course of the greater movement for mental health recovery and advocacy in the US and highlighted the services program for being part of 20 years of that movement.
PROS is a mental health program offered through BHSN, offering tailored therapeutic and rehabilitation treatments designed to empower individuals to reach their goals.
Director of PROS at BHSN, Meagan Perkins said the program offers those in recovery a community.
“PROS isn’t just a set of services, it’s a community and recovery doesn’t happen without community,” she said.
Perkins said being there for someone during their journey on recovery is her favorite aspect.
“My favorite part about being involved is that the participants are in the driver’s seat,” Perkins said. “It’s an eye-opening experience to walk alongside someone with their journey. We’re celebrating their successes.
We’re supporting them in their setbacks, and we don’t leave their side.”
“To see folks decide that PROS feels like home to them on a bad day just lets us know we’re doing the work that we meant to do,” she added.
Perkins called the PROS program an “adventure-based counseling,” meaning they go out into the community several times a week on team-based tasks, such as hiking, snowshoeing, kayaking and swimming.
These also include skills to navigate the world.
“Our services are in folks’ homes. They are in the stores to learn how to grocery shop. They are on public transportation to teach them how to navigate public transportation,” she said. “We’re in the courtrooms. We’re in probation appointments, doctors’ offices, any part of the community that anyone can access.”
Perkins is also a member of the PROS band.
“I’m learning to play an instrument that I genuinely thought I never would have been able to play, and I love that because nobody has to arrive as a finished product,” Perkins said during her remarks.
“We get to learn, we get to figure things out, we get to make mistakes and keep going, and eventually we get to make something together that didn’t even exist before we started. The point isn’t whether any of us play perfectly. The point is that we have something to contribute, and we have a place to contribute it. That same spirit shows up in other parts of our program.”
Ferrari said the PROS program was a “cutting-edge new outlook on rehabilitation,” when it began in 2006.
“It just makes me very happy that here we are in 2026 with a PROS team that is strong and committed,” he said.
…“Believing that people can change and take those steps. We have to remember a lot of the PROS participants have been in and out of jail, in and out of the hospital, experienced homelessness, experienced a lot of trauma growing up. This program is an anchor, an anchor for people who believe and hope, and change. That people believe in them, and it’s really about never giving up.”
For more information about BHSN visit bhsn.org/ for more information about PROS visit bhsn.org/community-services-supports.