CHOICES, Inc., a tax exempt, 501(c)(3) organization, was formed to provide alternatives in the community to the current medication dominated mental health system.

CHOICES is what is known as a Consumer Run program, where "consumer" means someone who has been labeled with a serious mental illness and is a past or present recipient of mental health services. 

The philosophy behind CHOICES is reflected in both its name and the words which create the acronym CHOICES -- Consumers Having Ownership In Creating Effective Services -- which is people having options of their own creation and choosing.

CHOICES has three primary modes of operation.  The first is to provide people the types of services or other resources they choose to help them recover.  The second is to develop and provide, to the extent possible, the types of community mental health services described by Loren Mosher and Lorenzo Burti in Chapter 9 of their excellent book, Community Mental Health: A Practical Guide. The third is to be a conduit for "pass-through" grants to other Consumer Run programs that do not have tax exempt status or the administrative wherewithal to do so themselves.

CHOICES has received authorization to bill Medicaid and began accepting clients in July, 2007.