Local focus on mental health and substance use treatment gets $1 million infusion

When Michelle Gilchrist considers how to best help unhoused people mired in mental health and substance use issues, the way forward seems difficult but clear.

Assess the situation, gather up all your resources and put them toward a solution.

Wednesday afternoon, the Bloomington Health Foundation president and CEO suggested to a room full of politicians, business leaders and people working in the field that collaboration is the key.

Gilchrist announced the foundation’s Mental Health Collaborative initiative, where stakeholders will work together to tackle Bloomington’s mental health and substance use disorder crisis.

During a lunch at Woolery Mill, Gilchrist introduced the program and the foundation’s initial $1 million investment.

A brochure on the tables said the Mental Health Collaborative will take action “by convening key stakeholders and mobilizing resources” to “build a community that prioritizes mental health and empowers individuals to access the care they need.”

Gilchrist said the hope is to raise a total of $4 million for the multi-year initiative.

She said it’s especially important that people working in jobs and at social service agencies serving the unhoused are able to offer immediate help and share information in order to provide appropriate care.

The program will kick off in the next few months, she said, focusing on three areas: employing mental health navigators, establishing a universal release of information protocol and having an integrated system of providers.

She said stakeholders gathered at a December summit to discuss ways to move forward and make an impact to measurably improve lives.

“We had a good representation of the community who were candid and shared what they thought needs to be done,” Gilchrist said.

Talk is talk, “but they wanted to see action,” she said. So they identified a few problems area and came up with the three-tiered plan to address them.

“Solutions,” she said, “must be collaborative for us to really see progress.”

Gilchrist acknowledged the challenges and invited those in the room to join the collaborative effort to make change. Working together, she said, will strengthen the safety net.

“All roles in this mental health collaborative are to really facilitate conversations around the topic of mental health and substance use, how we can do better, treat people better, understand that they got where they are somehow and how do we get them to a place of stability,” she said.

“We have to accept some people may never get there, but they have to have the opportunity and a wealth of resources available to them.”

Contact H-T reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com or 812-318-5967.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington foundation pledges $1 million to mental health collaborative