Freeport resident Dennis King has been elected first vice president of the National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems.

King is currently serving a three-year term as a trustee of the organization. That term, and his one-year appointment as vice president, will expire at the end of 2002.

NAPHS is an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., which represents providers of behavioral health care. The group’s current priorities include increased access to mental health care and funding for youth services.

In monthly conferences with other executive board members, King will guide the direction and policies of NAPHS.

He is currently president and CEO of Spring Harbor Hospital and vice president of behavioral health at Maine Medical Center in Portland. A graduate of the University of Maine at Orono, he has served as president and CEO of Acadia Hospital in Bangor.

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Dorothy Hill of Bangor, vice president for patient care at Acadia Hospital in Bangor, is serving a one-year term as president of the American Psychiatric Nurses Association.

APNA focuses upon the recruitment and retention of psychiatric nurses and is currently lobbying for educational loans and funding for nursing programs.

Hill trained at the Washington Hospital Center in the District of Colombia and after working at Eastern Maine Medical Center she helped to establish Acadia Hospital, where she has held her vice presidency since the hospital’s inception in 1992.