OOOFC
Unofficial Acronym
On Our Own of Fairfax County (Jerry's version)
On Our Own of Fairfax County and OOOFxCo are more official pages than this...
Introduction
On Our Own of Fairfax County was the first to start organizing and helped advocate for Consumer Run Drop In Centers in Fairfax County and the region by doing research and getting the idea through the goverment system. The Empowered for a Change conference on March 4, 2005 brought consumer leaders to the area for other groups to start organizing and learning from outside resources.
OOOFxCo is open 3:00 to 9:00 PM Thursdays and 1:00 to 7:00 Saturdays and Sundays.
Jerry's version of an OOOFC History
Previous Attempts
Rumors of other attempts at creating drop in centers over the years. Contact Advocates / NVMHCA for more background on that...
MH Committee Report
FairfaxCounty's CSB MH Committee Recovery report was informative. Found reference at http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/csb/announcements/recoverymodel.pdf
Jerry's drop in efforts (and hence the history that he can report on) started about here.
LMEC Proposal
LMEC created a proposal that was stalled by FairfaxCounty contract negotiations and/or other issues. It aimed at creating three centers instantly where much time is required for consumers to be educated, involved and included in the process of forming a consumer run service.
Stalled
NVMHCA advocates discussed the issue of stalled negotiations and pushed Jerry towards Senior CSB members at the RRWG's Recovery conference during lunch time.
RRWG Recovery Conference
Having found a CSBExec, more arrived around lunchtime, a follow on meeting occurred after the MIAW2004 of that Fall season, endless OOOFC meetings based on consensus (a rather slow Process where everyone has to agree), closed membership paritally due to restarting each time a new person became interested and had to be informed/'educated', organizing committees formed, learning about FiscalAgents (originally PRS was the only organization on a vendor list that FairfaxCounty would legally recognize with money charging 15% admin overhead, which really probably didn't cover all the work involved, but it was exciting times doing something new)...
So organizing committee (aka DisOrganizing Committee ;-} ) members were recruited, subcommittees started (Empowered for a Change as one externally noteable, though far from the only subcommittee formed, including workplan, fiscal and many others I'm forgetting at the moment)...
It is fairly common for contracting and projects to have milestones and deliverables. By handing over deliverables/products like research and reports, payments could be arranged and scheduled.
Payment was calculated by meeting attendence (to IndependentContractors) from Bill's MeetingMinutes, a (somewhat) living wage stipend was set ($15/ hour given some transportation to and from local meetings was required and no lunch/food provided (with execption of a signing party with PRS, iirc), outside meetings work (prep and reporting, spreadsheet, research and other misc work) was estimated, expenses (paper, gas, ink, supplies, etc for those not able to be paid due to ConflictOfInterest and/or similar, etc)
The conference and background work required helped bump up the startup funding from $20k to $30k (non RFP limit) for much longer work setting up and advocating within the county and elsewhere...
Jerry exits OOOFC
As the harrassment continued, going to CSPNJ's annual summer conference with OPFC and Reston Drop In Center introduced him to other interested people and groups involved in the larger effort. OPFC had few people to organize and was a long commute from South County but needed some help, afaict and was a centrally located DropInCenter that could end up different than OOOFC in many ways.
FairfaxCounty's MIAW2005 contained a Consumer DropInCenter Panel where organizers from the three centers were moderated by Will of On Our Own of Charlottesville fame...
Jerry tried to fill in for a key mid county organizer who had just left for full time employment. See OPFC History for more info on that experience until CWC
reorganization...
MORE TO DO HERE...
Officially
Possibly formally named to OOOFxCo or similar due to straight acronym pronunciation...
Please see that page for more official information. (Wiki pages are words/names, so having it different helps distinguish versions of the history as well...)
Links
Jerry's not familiar with any official website, though it might be hosted here as the proposal was intended to create combined webspace and more for consumers but like many things has turned into a nightmare at times...
BottomLine?
The first to start organizing in the area, but the last of the Fairfax County to actually open about April 20 with a later opening celebration (May?) when the kinks get worked out on people coming in to staff it as is common practice.
What Jerry calls the South County (Fairfax) drop in center where he was inducted ;-} to nonprofit organizing until group ridicule and harassment became the rule instead of the exception...
Pronounce OOOFC to get an idea. The acronym was a joke on the difficulties of starting up any project as a first in the region but the issues and difficulties are quite real in startups. One mentor described it as a startup business with inherent risks (check percentages of business that fail for reference). In the technology field, people make software and hardware prototypes which they have to be willing to let go of to get to the fully implemented 'bright idea' usually in phases.
More Opinionated
Seriously, On Our Own, the book and other organizations were the foundation upon which people wanted to form a consumer owned and operated service of a drop in center...
To OOOFC's credit they created the Empowered for a Change conference which several other Fairfax consumers (approximately 250?) got together to learn from keynote Jackie McKinney, examples (On Our Own of Maryland, CSPNJ, NMHA, VOCAL, On Our Own of Charlottesville, church funding and many others) and open the intended 3 consumer owned and operated organizations meeting during a working lunch time for gathering... Later discovered many people who were interested in Drop In Centers had never heard of the conference, so keeping records and recirculating material becomes increasingly important in any bottom up and long community based process approach for the region...
See Also:
More Official
OOOFxCo
On Our Own of Fairfax County
Page History
20070427 Jerry updating and correcting
20070424 Jerry
Informal evaluations and many other unsolicited comments
need to review later when feeling better...
mixing between history and other sections which need to be merged...
20060923 Jerry
- Creating page to explain the acronym
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