Emily Bridge

Too often, veterans and service members choose to end their lives by suicide. In fact, each day an average of 25 veterans commit suicide and even more attempt to end their lives, according to the 

. Many others struggle from the effects of living with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or substance use disorder. Healthcare executives can help to change these dynamics in two important ways:

 Take action to educate key community stakeholders about suicide, to raise awareness, and to reduce the stigmas around mental health.

 Increase access to behavioral healthcare by focusing on ways to connect people to the services they need.

To truly support veterans, we must care for their mental health as much as their physical health. Yet many veterans don’t reach out for mental health services when they need them most. Often, they feel uncomfortable seeking help because there is a very real stigma around mental health concerns. In many cases, veterans are burdened by unrealistic expectations about being strong. They would rather “power through” any pain they experience, whether physical or emotional.

As health professionals, we know how crucial it is to remove that stigma. That’s why a group of community providers around Charlotte, North Carolina, recently joined to create the Service Member Veteran Family (SMVF) Suicide Prevention Workgroup. It is focused on one common goal: ensuring our veterans have the best possible support to lead healthy lives.

The SMVF Suicide Prevention Workgroup's vision is for all who have served to thrive, know they belong, and know where to reach out to find help and hope rather than choosing suicide. Participating healthcare organizations assist with the Whole Health Model, aimed at ensuring healthcare providers know how to care for individuals mentally and socially, as well as physically. Workgroup members have conducted mental health awareness events, Mental Health First Aid training and crisis intervention training for service providers and local communities. Through networking opportunities, they are deepening inter-agency relationships and strengthening their knowledge of all the supplemental community services available. 

Funded by a U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (

) grant, the group is finding better ways to:

Identify veterans who could benefit from mental and behavioral health services;

Help them understand what services are available;

Get them registered for those services; and

Remain connected with them over time to ensure they have access to the services they need to be successful

Health Execs Take a Community-Based Approach to Mental Health

The group began by developing a Sequential Intercept Crisis Map and action plan to identify community resources available to help. A Sequential Intercept Crisis Map is meant to be a living document. Its purpose is not only to outline the assistance process, but also to address crisis needs within the community by “connecting the dots” between existing and growing resources.

Fortunately, there are lots of resources to draw from-even among members of the workgroup itself, which includes the VA, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Atrium Health, Cardinal Innovations Healthcare, the North Carolina National Guard, the 145th Air Wing Air National Guard, the American Red Cross, Veterans Bridge Home, Family Preservation Services, Stop Solider Suicide, Novant Health, the DoD-Medical Command, the Mecklenburg County Veterans Services Office, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, Habitat for Humanity, HUGS (Healing and Understanding of Grief from Suicide), and Visionary Physical Therapy and Wellness.

Veteran Access to Mental Health Expands Under Telepsychiatry

Over the next several months the workgroup will meet to tackle their action items, which are aligned with the North Carolina Suicide Prevention Plan and the National Strategy for Suicide Prevention. These action items aim to reduce suicide by:

Empowering individuals, families and communities;

Identifying, promoting, and supporting clinical and community preventive services;

Promoting treatment and support services; and

Effectively using surveys, research and evaluation options to help inform suicide prevention programs.

While the community-based approach taken by the SMVF Suicide Prevention Workgroup is an effective way to support veterans locally, it’s the kind of effort that needs to happen in more communities throughout the nation. That’s why the ultimate goal of the team is to build a program that can be replicated in communities across the country, providing intervention and services on a broader scale.  

With suicide as a leading cause of death in our country, it’s more important than ever to put innovative prevention programs in place. We must encourage people to seek treatment for their mental health just as they do for their physical health. Efforts such as those of the SMVF Suicide Prevention Workgroup stand to make a positive and significant impact by increasing access to and awareness of the services available to veterans-or anyone-who could benefit from supportive care for their mental health.

Emily Bridge is director, community engagement, 

. Shadale Jacobs is access coordinator manager and veterans point of contact 

Articles

A group of community providers around Charlotte, North Carolina, joined to create a special workgroup to ensure that veterans have the best possible support to lead healthy lives.

Community Organization Model Tackles Veterans’ Mental Health Issues 

Lack of access to healthcare resources continues to impact too many Americans suffering from complex medical and/or behavioral health conditions. Fortunately, the call to improve population health is increasingly being addressed by many payer and provider organizations actively working to provide more person-centered care.

That’s especially true for the complex patient populations managed at Cardinal Innovations Healthcare. As the largest specialty plan in the country, Cardinal Innovations serves one of every four North Carolina Medicaid enrollees-more than 500,000 people. Since our inception, one incredibly valuable lesson we’ve learned is this: It takes everyone in the community to help address and improve member health.

That fact is doubly important when it comes to addressing mental health needs, especially when you consider that only about four in 10 people experiencing a mental illness (39.2%) received mental health services, according to one report.

To help community partners better understand mental health in a comprehensive way, Cardinal Innovations has committed to offering a series of 

 training programs. It is a good way to help educate agencies in law enforcement, schools, health departments, corrections and public safety, as well as those serving veterans, service members, and families.

The MHFA programs are an example of community-based models of care management. Trainers certified in adult and youth MHFA facilitate a bigger conversation around mental health. Classes are designed to help reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness, while increasing community agency employees’ effectiveness at recognizing when a person may be experiencing mental health issues.

MHFA classes give various agency employees the skills they need to recognize, understand and support people in crisis. They explain how to know when to reach out and provide help for those who may be experiencing a crisis, or may be in an escalating situation. Instructors teach MHFA attendees to follow their instincts; if they think there is something wrong, react to that instinct, ask if there is distress, and intervene on behalf of the client.

Courses include information about community resources available to continue to support people in need, including Cardinal Innovations’ own 24-hour crisis referral line. Ensuring that community partners understand how to respond to people who may be experiencing mental health crisis helps encourage healthier members overall.

As we work to overcome the stigma of mental health, MHFA should be considered just as important as the CPR training that’s mandated for many agency employees.

To help build a stronger community support system and strategy around mental health, here are three tips other managed care organizations can use as well:

. Find out what previous mental health encounters agency staff have had. Ask what they wish they’d known to help them respond. Almost every agency Cardinal Innovations has come across is aware that they need more insights around mental health training. The key is to demonstrate effectiveness. The goal of the MHFA program, for instance, is to help build protocols for responding to and supporting members with mental health needs, as well as ensuring the safety of agency employees. Offer evidence-based training, and agencies will be more likely to commit the time needed for a successful educational program.

. Take advantage of best practices and trainings community partners have already created. This will not only save time internally, it will help keep your teams focused on their core specialties, rather than having to build awareness and response training on their own. Since training from Cardinal Innovations is provided to a variety of agencies throughout communities in North Carolina, sessions are tailored to each agency’s unique mission.

Make it personal. Training should focus on how to provide the right intervention at the right time for the right person. Emphasis should be placed on early intervention and prevention of true crises, which offers the best possibility for a positive outcome.

Often these efforts involve addressing social determinants of health. These include the available community resources that can contribute to and influence a person’s ability to pursue well-being-things like having access to a safe place to live, transportation to get to the doctor’s office, or even a cell phone or other technology to make appointments and communicate their health needs. These all greatly affect a person’s ability to engage in their health and follow their care plans.

Through Mental Health First Aid and other programs, Cardinal Innovations is strengthening the community and improving the lives of members. Across the board, Cardinal Innovations shares one key truth with all its partner agencies: it takes a community- and member-focused approach to effectively help complex populations.

It doesn’t take a special skill set to assist members with mental health needs, but it does take community-wide awareness training. Ask yourself: Who might interact with someone facing a mental health issue? The answer is anyone who is around other people-in other words, anyone. And that means everyone has the potential to help save a life.

To help build a stronger community support system and strategy around mental health, here are three tips for managed care organizations.

Author | Emily Bridge

Articles

Community Organization Model Tackles Veterans’ Mental Health Issues

Opinion: Health Execs Take a Community-Based Approach to Mental Health