Contact:         Jim Gemmell

                     Director of Communications, YAI

                     207.523-5014; jgemmell@youthalternatives.org

YAI’s Randall Place to be Re-named

Treatment Facility to be Named for Longtime Ingraham Executive Director

PORTLAND (June 1, 2008) — As a tribute to Jane Morrison’s years of service and dedication to Ingraham and its mission, YAI is poised to rename its 12-bed treatment facility on Randall Street in Portland in her honor.  The new name of the residential program will be Morrison Place at Randall Street.  Morrison served as Executive Director of Ingraham for 17 years prior to that agency’s merger with Youth Alternatives.  Ingraham and Youth Alternatives are now the combined agency, YAI/Youth Alternatives Ingraham. 

Morrison’s career as a social worker began in 1969 when she served as a counselor on a helpline in Iowa, which led to county health department work in Michigan.  After moving to Maine, she worked at the Western Maine Area Agency on Aging, where she served as Director of Long Term Care until she took over the helm of Ingraham in 1989.  Under her leadership, Ingraham expanded to include a full continuum of mental health crisis services, seven residential treatment and community support programs for homeless youth and adults with mental illness, the statewide Teen Yellow Pages, and 2-1-1 Maine, the state’s health and human services information and referral line. 

Randall Place offers intensive individualized treatment for homeless adults with co-occurring mental health and substance abuse issues. A ceremony to honor Morrison and re-name the facility is planned for early June.

For more information on Morrison Place at Randall Street, or to set up an interview for your programming or publication, please contact:

Jim Gemmell:

(207) 523-5014

jgemmell@youthalternatives.org