Community Alliance
Ryan Russell has extensive experience in mental health and support services, currently serving as a Community Support Specialist at Community Alliance Mental Health Recovery since March 2012, where the focus is on assisting individuals with mental illness in achieving their potential and facilitating WRAP programs. Prior roles include Direct Support Representative at Developmental Services of Nebraska, providing support to individuals with developmental disabilities, and Residential Assistant at the H.E.R.O. Program, supervising residents in a drug and alcohol treatment center. Additional experience includes working as a Family Partner at Owens & Associates, overseeing parental visitations, and as a Project Manager at Hewlett Packard, where Ryan managed complex projects for corporate clients. Educational qualifications include an Associate degree in Alcohol & Chemical Dependency from Metropolitan Community College and undergraduate studies in Psychology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Community Alliance
At Community Alliance, our sole focus is, and always has been on adults with mental illness. Since 1981, this fact has separated us from more traditional social service agencies and treatment centers in the Omaha area. We are an organization of over 250 dedicated, concerned professionals and volunteers who believe in the potential of recovery for all individuals with a mental illness and we dedicate all our resources to support the journey of each individual we serve. We work to provide programs and opportunities to encourage individuals to develop the strengths and skills to deal with their mental illness or co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorder. Additionally, we serve as an advocate with doctors, social service networks, and throughout the community. We go outside the walls of the hospital and our own facilities to support people in their own neighborhoods and communities, where the strengths and confidences we have helped them develop can be put into practice. We advocate with government and others for greater access to the life-restoring services and needed policy changes that can ease the journey being traveled by so many individuals with mental illness and their families. And we work to help erase the stigma and myths that still surround mental illness and which still serve as roadblocks along the road to recovery.