Florida center teaches people with special needs to help themselves

Randall Williams talks about his mental illness in Lakeland a few weeks ago. Williams is attending college and hopes eventually to work with people with illnesses similar to his.

Too many people with disabilities are taught to be helpless, some advocates say, and one Florida program is helping its clients become more assertive in making decisions about their own treatment. "People with mental illness are told how to act, how to think, how to behave," said Chip Jones, a facilitator at a Lakeland, Fla., center that supports people with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and depression. "They lose their belief, their power, their feeling that they have a right to speak out about things." The Ledger (Lakeland, Fla.)