Great Lakes Bay Region Mental Health Partnership works to break down barriers to mental health care

Dallas RauDallas Rau Executive Director of the Great Lakes Bay Region Mental Health PartnershipDallas Rau is the Executive Director of the Great Lakes Bay Region Mental Health Partnership. In this role, she works to ensure that everyone knows where to seek help when facing mental health challenges, can request assistance without fear of stigma, and receives timely access to high-quality care. Before this position, Dallas served as the Director of Program Development at the Michigan Health Improvement Alliance.

How did the Great Lakes Bay Region Mental Health Partnership come to be?

The Mental Health Partnership started with a family that experienced a loss. Their son died by suicide and the family wanted to turn that loss into helping other people and that is how we formed our strategies. Their son was sent to a doctor, and they had to prescribe him some different medications for his mental health challenge. 

They were told, don't tell anybody. That’s where they experienced the stigma surrounding getting help for mental illness. They had a hard time finding a therapist–the right therapist. Then, he ended up dying by suicide. The family just said, “How can we help other people to not go through this?” That's how the Mental Health Partnership was born. So that also frames our strategies. 

What services do you offer and where?

Our focus is regional as we serve Midland, Bay, Saginaw and Isabella counties in the Great Lakes Bay Region. We want to educate workplaces and youth by using different programs on mental health. Then our strategy is to enhance mental health providers' access by getting mental health providers in our pipeline. We try to hold an annual summit where we invite those mental health providers to come to experience a keynote speaker and some different breakout sessions that interest them. 

They can earn some education credit in many cases. We give the providers time to network and come together and just have that time to have that camaraderie and establish relationships because they can feel isolated as well. Data tells us they don’t always take their own advice. So, that is our focus, and within those strategies are programs. 

The Mental Health First Aid Program is one of the main things that we use at the partnership. These mental health first aid programs are from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. It's an evidence-based curriculum and we train adults, youth, and teens how to identify and understand signs and symptoms of someone who may suffer from poor mental health or a substance abuse challenge. 

How can organizations or businesses utilize your services?

Businesses can pay a direct service fee for us to come, and we can provide the training for them. Classes are up to 30 participants at a time. We can go anywhere across the region and work with whomever. The other piece that we do is a grassroots effort called our iMatter Anti-Stigma Campaign. That is getting people who are leaders, friends, neighbors and other folks in the community to come forward and share their mental health story. 

These folks are sharing their journey from when they first developed symptom onset and when they discovered something might not be quite right and they needed help, and then, how they got the help. Ultimately, they're sharing that message of hope. We can then, hopefully, break down that barrier of stigma, and people can get connected to the support, the medication, the professional, or the self-help resources they may need.

Who are some of your community partners? Who would you work with on a regular day?

Everyone and anyone could be a partner to us and right now, there are so many. Northwood University, Huntington Bank, Barb Smith Suicide Resource and Response Network, The ROCK, LEAD – the list really goes on and on. Having those kinds of partners at the table, and the Midland Well-being Coalition, we can make sure we're not replicating and duplicating efforts across the region. We add or supplement other initiatives happening across the region. 

We're not the only ones doing the Mental Health First Aid, but we're the one that are really pushing it strongly, from a regional perspective.  We can be more aware of our friends and our coworkers or even a stranger on the street. We're more equipped to notice something and can hopefully help that person who otherwise wouldn't have gotten the help if they need it. Having community partners makes us stronger and better.

You mentioned private pay, but are you funded in other ways? 

We have a blended funding model. We do an annual fundraiser, receive grants, and have direct pay. Direct or private pay can look like a consultation or maybe providing a speaker at a safety meeting. It can also look like a speaker coming to talk to the groups about different ways the employees can engage and understand the support, signs and symptoms that exist. Doing a few training courses is a tangible way to get a great return on their investment.

Rau asks that the community follow Great Lakes Bay Region Mental Health Partnership on social media to check out the resources that are frequently posted. She also invites the community to visit their website to fill out a form to share their mental health stories, to be a storyteller to other community members.