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Funds limited to address mental health issues

Big Bear Grizzly - 7/12/2017

There's no wrong door to open if you're struggling with mental health. That's the goal of the 10-year-old Big Bear Mental Health Alliance.

"If you walk in one door, and it's not the right one, they find you the right door," said Eileen Hofer, chairperson for the alliance and senior director of Lutheran Social Services.

The alliance, a partnership between Lutheran Social Services, DOVES, The Mom & Dad Project, Healthy Start and Mental Health Systems, originally joined forces in 2007 to better serve the mental health needs of the Big Bear community.

Since its inception, more people are receiving services, specifically chronically mentally ill adults, Hofer said.

"Each member of the mental health alliance is doing its own work every single day," DOVES' Quinton Page said. "So it's kind of cool, the mental health alliance is not just something we do full-time, it's something we do on top of the work we already do, to make the work we do full-time more impactful."

Page said problems are never linear or isolated. There's intersectionality between issues related to mental health and overall health.

"We might have someone who comes to our shelter at DOVES, but they also need drug treatment, and they also need to see a psychiatrist, and maybe they have parenting issues," Page said. Even if these individuals need support that's not offered at DOVES, it is easier to refer them to the services they need.

The alliance helped increase communication and collaboration between the various groups in the Valley, Page said.

"We take anyone who walks through the door as an emergency," Hofer said. "We may not keep them. They may be referred on to another agency or whatever. But if someone walks through our front door and says they're suicidal, we're going to figure out how to help them."

Hofer said the mental health alliance has seen an increase in domestic violence, and substance abuse in mental health issues in the past six or seven years. She attributes this, in part, to the overall health of the economy. "People who were maintaining, now aren't," Hofer said.

This lack of stability in parents then affects children. "Children are our most vulnerable population," Hofer said.

Hofer said children are starting to use drugs at a younger age, and more children are being exposed to domestic violence, which is bad for developing brains. They are developing behavioral and mental health issues at a higher rate and much more severely than seen in the past.

When asked about challenges, Hofer had one main answer: money. "I'll be honest, the whole world is holding their breath," Hofer said."If they just repeal Obamacare or they do some of their proposed changes, it's going to decimate mental health."

The Mental Services Act helps in the county, but funds are limited there as well, Hofer said.

"It's a real problem," Hofer said. "All we can do is see as many people as we can, and provide high quality services."

Getting people to even come in is another challenge, Hofer said. The Hispanic population in the Valley is especially reluctant to seek the alliance's services, Hofer said. "We wish we could help more of the Hispanic population," she said.

The stigma surrounding mental health keeps people from seeking help, Hofer said.

"I think one of my biggest frustrations is people who have this attitude of 'they need to help themselves,' or 'they need to get a job,'" Hofer said. "They can't because they're mentally ill. It puts them in a Catch-22 with no way out."

Mental health is a medical issue and should be treated as such, Hofer said. "The brain is an organ just like any other organ in the body," she said. "If you're diabetic, you take insulin. If you have high blood pressure, you take high blood pressure pills."

The Big Bear Mental Health Alliance does outreach through social media, its van, events in the Valley, a published pamphlet and more, Page said.

"We're starting to build a following," Hofer said. "It's small, it's only maybe 100, but it's slowly beginning to emerge."

For more information, visit www.bigbearmentalhealthalliance.org. To call the 24/7 confidential crisis hotline, dial 866-729-9633.