You’re not as visible as you think.
Hard-working, dedicated, treatment and support providers are often invisible to their own communities.
A suburban police captain recently commented at a training event that he would welcome consultation with a local community mental health center when his officers encounter a person with mental illness.
Except they can’t, he said, because there aren’t any mental health services in his suburb.
Guess what? A large community mental health center (that claims to have over 10,000 client contacts a year) is located on the same street, a block away, from the captain’s police station office.
A woman from Detroit contacted us at the National Treatment Access Project last week. She is looking for a mental health or substance use treatment program where she and her church group might be able to help out, as volunteers.
Guess what? They haven’t been able to find one!
Mind you, they haven’t simply failed to find a program that would let them volunteer. No, they haven’t been able to find any mental health or substance use programs anywhere in Michigan.
There’s useful feedback in these stories.
If an experienced police captain believes there are no mental health services in his community, despite a large mental health center down the block from his office, how will their potential clients find them?
If a group of motivated volunteers can’t find any substance abuse or mental health treatment programs anywhere in Michigan, how will their potential clients find them?
All of us in this field need to work harder at being accessible to people who need what we offer. The first step is to become more visible.
We need to do a much better job of that. The first step is to get your services listed in the National Treatment and Support Directory today.
In the coming months, we’ll run a series of articles on our website (ntap.us) about other things treatment and support providers can do to become more visible in your communities.
Land Realtor at Sun Realty USA
8 年Wonderful post! Very helpful to those in need! Thank you!
Lived Experience Speaker at BHRS Lived Experience Speakers Bureau
9 年I love this article as it is short, sweet, and to the point! And it is an extremely important point to be made. The county I live in is very visible during the months of May (anti-stigma) and August (recovery happens), but not so much during the rest of the year. Due to an incident I had personally with Law Enforcement 10 yrs ago I have always wanted to be involved in trainings between Mental Health and Law Enforcement, so far I've had no such luck.