GREENFIELD — Since at least 2016, Hancock Regional Hospital has sharpened its focus on youth mental health and substance abuse disorder.
Its latest step, officials said, is to work with a well-known expert to find unmet mental health and substance abuse needs in the county and develop a plan to meet those needs.
Hancock Health officials recently announced the hospital system has contracted Suzanne Clifford, founder and CEO of Inspiring Transformations, a consulting firm that works with communities to improve their health through collaborative efforts.
The hospital sent out requests for proposals to several companies, but had heard good things about Clifford and the work she did with the city of Fishers to develop and implement mental health training across city departments, public safety, and schools, said Craig Felty, Hancock Health vice president of patient care.
“We talked with her and we were impressed by her experience, her knowledge of the Indy metro area and Hancock County,” Felty said. “Her work with the city of Fishers speaks well to her experience and her ability to get things done.”
Clifford will identify community stakeholders in the areas of mental health and meet with them to determine what needs are being covered by existing agencies and businesses and what needs are currently unmet locally, Felty said.
“Our overall goal is to increase and improve the mental health within Hancock County and to do that, one of our biggest goals is going to be to gather the resources we already have and determine the resources we need,” Felty said. We want to make it a little easier for the Hancock Health community to get the care they need, close to home.”
Felty said the whole community needs to be engaged in order to make the effort a success.
While every community is different, Clifford has shown her company can help make a difference in the city of Fishers, Felty said.
The mayor of Fishers led a mental health initiative across many departments, businesses and other community stakeholders, including Hamilton Southeastern Schools, and since the project began, there have been no youth suicides in Fishers, Clifford said.
“It was through a very comprehensive community approach … to address suicides, with a major focus on youth suicides,” she said. “Now the initiative has broadened to really trying to create one of the most mentally healthy states in the city and the country, and I think they’re well on their way to doing that.”
That endeavor is among the best practices Clifford plans to share with the community in a series of public meetings, she said. The meetings will serve as an open forum for the community to come and share what their top needs are, she said.
Clifford is excited to work with the Hancock County community, which she said has already proven it knows how to find an unmet need and work together to find and implement a solution.
Since 2016, community efforts to address mental illness have been created. The hospital hired a system of care coordinator to work with mental health and substance abuse treatment organizations and create a governance board of organizations providing support to kids and families.
Around the same time, hospital officials began implementing Healthy 365, a collaborative mission to promote holistic health in the county. One of its areas of focus is mental fitness, which helps community members deal with stress, learn how to have healthy relationships and more, according to the Healthy365 website.
And in 2017, the System of Care governance board steering committee hosted the inaugural Rise Above It, an event about addiction, mental health and the opioid crisis, which drew some 200 people to Park Chapel Christian Church in Greenfield.
“The enthusiasm is contagious,” she said. “I think it will make this community very successful.”
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Mental illness and substance abuse needs public forum
6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 1, at the Hancock County Public Library, 900 W. McKenzie Road.
Share needs and potential solutions with Inspiring Transformations CEO Suzanne Clifford.
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