Linda Chambers' Perspective:

Linda Chambers is executive director of Clara Martin Center. (Herald / Bob Eddy)

'Why else are we here on earth?'

By Sandy Cooch

Linda Chambers doesn’t see much difference between the people who need a little help and those who give it.

"As a society, we like to think that people with problems are different than the rest of us, but they really are us," said Chambers, who for 12 years has held the top spot at the Clara Martin Center.

Since 1994, Chambers has been collaborating with families, her staff, and with other local, state, and federal agencies to find solutions to an unending parade of problems.

The list includes problems like alcoholism, drug addiction, family violence, and chronic mental illness, and underlying problems like sudden cuts in long-time funding sources.

Chambers also keeps her eye on state-wide problems like crowded prisons and heroin addiction. That’s because these larger issues affect what happens locally, and also so that the Clara Martin Center "can be part of the solution around them."

After all, Chambers says, "It’s the system that has to keep working, all together," not just her one agency.

In a recent interview in her second-story office overlooking Randolph’s Main Street, Chambers said her two primary missions are keeping mental health services as local and as accessible as possible, and finding the right collaborators to make the delivery of those services as effective and economical, as possible.

"We build relationships to help support people," Chambers commented.

For example, the Clara Martin Center partnered with the Veteran’s Administration to continue operation of the "Quitting Time" substance abuse program, when the VA lost some funding. Now the program, based in Wilder, offers substance abuse programs for anyone over 18.

Chambers noted that her agency also provides services in many public schools for behavioral and substance abuse problems.

Such counseling allows the schools to focus on their chief goal of educating students, Chambers noted. It also broadens Clara Martin’s network of "access points," helping the agency to reach families in need "before things get to a desperate point."

Chambers' job might wear some people down, but after all these years of doing her best to address big problems, she is still high on energy, commitment, and the conviction that community mental health services really are making a difference in peoples’ lives.

"I do care—that’s my mission, our mission," said Chambers, a fifth-generation Vermonter who grew up in Barre and in Windsor. "They’re our mothers, fathers, children, neighbors—all the people we know."

"I like to make things work for people," she said. "What else am I going to do? Why else are we here on earth?"