Community Fund Addresses Mental Health Crisis in Twin Cities

Minnesota Community Foundation, St. Paul, has announced new grants from the Community Mental Health Fund for three organizations working to address mental health issues in the Twin Cities. The grants, which totaled $1.53 million, were awarded in Dec. 2003 to the following organizations:

• Fairview Health Services received $750,000 to develop a 14-bed Diagnostic Evaluation Center that will provide lodging, assessment and stabilization services for adolescents experiencing psychological distress. The facility will be housed at Fairview-University's Riverside campus and will serve clients from the Twin Cities metropolitan area. "This grant allows us to improve access to care for adolescents and strengthen partnerships to create a more effective, seamless care experience for adolescents and their families," said Kathy Knight, behavioral services director for Fairview.
     
• People Incorporated received $80,000 to help fund the conversion of its Nancy Page Residence into a community-based hospital alternative for adults in crisis. The 16-bed facility will provide crisis care to individuals with serious and persistent mental illness and will help to reduce admission to psychiatric hospitals.
      
• Ramsey County received $700,000 to fund East Metro Children's Crisis Services. A partnership of Dakota, Ramsey and Washington counties, this project aims to change the children's mental health system in the East Metro by implementing a common mobile crisis response that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. "We want to be able to help families when their child is having a crisis, keep kids at home and avoid hospitalization whenever possible," said Joel Hetler, Ph.D., children's mental health manager for Ramsey County Human Services. "This grant helps us be available 24/7, get to the person in crisis and help stabilize the situation."

"During this round of grants, we focused on the significant need for improved adolescent care, including early intervention, facilities closer to home and a more systematic model for teens in crisis," said Donna Zimmerman, HealthPartners' vice president of government and community relations and chair of the Community Mental Health Fund. "We hope the recent grants will offer adolescents and their families better and earlier access to care, and prevent the current situation in which teens are often hospitalized far from their families."

The Community Mental Health Fund is a partnership of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, HealthPartners, Inc., Medica Health Plans, Preferred One Community Health Plan and UCare Minnesota Health Plans. The five organizations created the Fund in Dec. 2002 in response to the regional behavioral health care capacity crisis (see MCF's News Archives). The Fund awarded a total of $3.2 million in 2003 to new and innovative community programs that address this crisis. Organizations that received funding in July 2003 are already putting dollars to work in the community with crisis response, transitional housing and on-site services for behavioral health patients.

"With $1.6 million awarded in July, the Community Mental Health Fund enabled four Metro Area organizations to provide effective and timely services to children, adolescents and adults with mental illnesses," said Judi Dutcher, president of Minnesota Community Foundation. "Minnesota Community Foundation is proud to support a second round of awards that will create real change during a time of crisis for mental health systems in Minnesota."

The foundation has reported on the preliminary results of the Fund's first round of grants, which were awarded in July 2003:

• Ramsey County Community Human Services received $1 million and has since formed East Metro Adult Crisis Stabilization Collaborative, a crisis response system that augments inpatient services in the East Metro. Since July, the collaborative has provided services to 123 adults, including a woman with agoraphobia who was able to meet with a psychiatrist in her home and receive immediate treatment that kept her from being hospitalized.
     
• Carver County received $123,600 for its Comprehensive Mental Health Crisis Project. In one example, the Crisis Project recently assisted a 30-year old man with on-site psychiatric diagnosis, thereby helping him avoid police intervention and hospitalization, which allowed the man to remain with his family.
     
• People Incorporated received $243,000 to open a 24-hour mental health center for people facing a mental health crisis. People Incorporated's Anoka County Crisis Services is now able to provide round-the-clock crisis services in a home-like environment.
     
• The Regions Hospital Foundation in St. Paul received $300,000 to help purchase an eight-apartment unit building. Hovander House opened Oct. 15 and is providing transitional housing to adults ready to leave hospital settings but not ready to return home.

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