Psynergy Programs Opens Vista Esperanza-The Housing That Heals Vision Expands in Sacramento

#VistaEsperanza #HousingThatHeals #Psynergy #PartnersInCare #FamiliesLikeMine #TrackingTheTriumphs

Those who have followed my #DannyDays posts have heard about the amazing Psynergy Programs. They have been a gold star Housing That Heals program for my son and family, so I was honored to serve on the Advisory Committee for planning and designing their new Residential Care Facility for the Elderly.

I was supposed to speak at their ribbon-cutting ceremony yesterday but started getting a scratchy throat/fever and had to miss it. Below are the comments that Lynda Kaufmann partially read on my behalf.

My Comments:

Good morning,

I am Teresa Pasquini, a mom on a mission to improve our local, state, and national mental health systems. That mission is grounded in my determination to stop the suffering that I have witnessed in my community, my state, my country, and in my own home. That suffering is unnecessary and can be prevented if we all learn together, improve together, and shatter the status quo together.

My journey to shatter the status quo is anchored in a strong social justice upbringing and the trauma of watching my beloved son fall off every jagged edge of every broken piece of the public and private mental health systems of California. The cuts are so deep, mostly for our son, his sister, his dad, and me. That is why I have sought authentic partners in care over the past 20 years to help heal our son, our family, and all families like mine.

Thankfully, Psynergy Programs became an authentic partner in care when my son transferred to their Morgan Hill Nueva Vista facility in 2019. But, first, I need to provide some history to understand how important this partnership has been.

My beloved son, Danny, lives heroically with a co-occurring severe mental illness and substance use disorder. Danny was diagnosed with a serious mental illness in his teens and has spent much of his adult life in locked psychiatric facilities. He has been 5150d over 40 times, deemed gravely disabled at the age of 19, and has had his LPS Conservatorship renewed annually for the past 23 years. He has suffered multiple suicide attempts, involuntary holds, revolving hospitalizations, homelessness, and incarceration.

It was a living nightmare that repeated over and over again for him and our family. So, I began dreaming about a fully funded, fluid continuum of care where our loved ones could access quality hospital-based and community-based services across the age span.

In 2019, while my son was healing in a locked IMD, I began worrying about where he would go next. So, I joined my friend, Lauren Rettagliata on a 3000-mile journey to visit over 22 facilities across the state of California. We set out to find a place like home for families like ours whose loved ones are forced to live in inappropriate housing or left stuck behind locked doors.

We wrote a paper issued on Mother’s Day in 2020 and started a local, state, and national conversation about what we coined, Housing That Heals. It was the housing that nobody had been talking about.

The paper combined the lived experience of families like ours with policy recommendations Our paper reflected our vision for our loved ones and our communities to create flow, and expand access and quality along a full continuum of appropriate care and housing options in our state. The vision has evolved since releasing our paper.

For example, we advocated for the BHCIP/CCE funding to become available to those providers who serve the SMI population, like Psynergy, who had previously been excluded from state funding. Thankfully, Psynergy received one of those grants allowing us all to celebrate today’s grand opening of Vista Esperanza. This RCFE will allow the residents who are approaching the age of 60 to remain in a healing, therapeutic community environment.

As we traveled the state presenting our paper to a variety of stakeholders, we had the privilege of meeting many amazing front-line providers, family members, and peers who share our vision for providing the right care, at the right time and in the right place. We all agree that jail is never the right place and our state must move towards building a behavioral health care infrastructure that will not leave the most severely mentally ill population suffering in solitary or on the streets when appropriate options are possible.

Fortunately, my Danny finally got the right care at the right time in the right place when he went to live at Psynergy’s Morgan Hill facility 5 years ago. It has been his first successful transition to the community. He had a couple of relapses after the pandemic but Psynergy wrapped him in continuous clinical and residential support which allowed him to regain his recovery without going back behind locked doors. Psynergy is the gold standard Housing That Heals model for my family.

We will never be able to explain the depth of gratitude for the authentic partnership our family has experienced with the administrative, clinical, and residential staff support at Psynergy. For example, I got an email from his treating psychiatrist telling me how Danny dropped into the clinic requesting to speak with him. Danny had concerns about a symptom he was experiencing and Dr. Lilly helped him that day. That's what I call treatment on demand.

This is the benefit of the Psynergy model which includes an outpatient specialty mental health clinic right next door. You don't have to wait if you need help. A lot of things go wrong when our loved ones have to wait for the right care. Psynergy provides prevention and intervention right on the spot. The Psynergy model is whole-person care for a very vulnerable population. All barriers should be removed from scaling up this model across the state.

Families like mine must have access to a full continuum of medically necessary care and tiered levels of Housing That Heals. With Prop 1 and the multiple care reforms currently taking place, California finally has the opportunity to end the nightmare and create a dream continuum of care.

Thank you Psynergy for showing us how it is done and continuing to expand your vision across our state.