Bill Compton

William H. "Bill" Compton, Jr. (October 6, 1945, Rockford, Illinois – August 27, 2007) was a mental health advocate in California who attained national stature. After suffering a mental health crisis in 1989, he became heavily involved in self-help and patients' rights advocacy issues. Between 1994 and 2007 he was the head of a large network of peer support groups.

Beginning in 1994, Compton headed Project Return: The Next Step (PR:TNS), a consumer-run self-help network supported by the National Mental Health Association of Greater Los Angeles. In May 2007, the organization was renamed Project Return Peer Support Network. He became director of the network when the sponsoring organization decided to turn the network's administration over to those who used its services.

Compton built the network from about thirty peer-support groups to more than one hundred, which employed about one hundred individuals in positions ranging from stipend to full-time, serving several thousand individuals with serious mental disorders. The network included projects that Compton developed, such as PR:TNS Discovery Centers, which provided personal and professional growth opportunities, and the Friendship Line, an after-hours phone service that provided peer-to-peer support for people with mental illness.

Compton was on the Board of Directors of Mental Health America (formerly the National Mental Health Association) from 2002 to 2007. He was also president of the board of Protection & Advocacy, Inc. of California, which focused on protecting the rights of mental health and other disabled consumers throughout California. Beginning in November, 2003, Compton was the chairman of the board of directors for the Pacific Clinic, the largest nonprofit mental health organization in California, based in Pasadena, California; he left that position in 2005.

In 2005, Compton wrote a one-man play, "Swept Away or The Week That I Went Crazy." He performed it at a number of conferences and schools.

...
Wikipedia