GREENFIELD — After nearly a year of preparations, leaders of a mental health resource center housed at Brandywine Community Church are launching the program publicly.
The Wellspring Center Mental Health and Wellness Program provides evidence- and faith-based peer support as well as a resource center to help people in crisis find their next steps, said executive director Gina Colclazier.
The effort rose out of grief after a parishioner of Brandywine Community Church died by suicide last year, officials said. Leaders of the church applied for a community ministry grant from the Indianapolis-based Center for Congregations, an organization that aims to help Indiana churches address their parishioners’ needs. The grant originally focused on substance abuse, but after Teddy Hamilton, well-known among the church’s 1,400-member congregation, died by suicide, leaders decided to redirect their focus.
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The church received $30,000 through the grant program, and parishioners raised more than twice that, nearly $70,000, to match the grant.
Colclazier and a group of doctors, counselors and other stakeholders surveyed and conversed with community members for about nine months, and they learned one of the biggest problems with mental health care in the community is the gap between when people need care and when they are able to get it, she said.
“We have geared the whole program, the groups and the programming, for people to be able to get in at any point,” she said. “There’s a big need for family members who struggle, who needed care themselves.”
The aim of the program is to provide a holistic approach to mental illness and recovery, Colclazier said. She wants to help those who reach out with their emotional distress and its underlying causes alike, whether it’s financial instability, an addiction or another reason, she said.
She said the family-aimed group helps them learn skills and tools for helping with medication and self-care, setting boundaries and how to communicate with their loved one.
The resource center at Wellspring aims to help overwhelmed individuals find the help they need, whether it’s access to counseling or psychiatric care, direction in where to go or what to do, and even help with medical bills in some cases, Colclazier said.
Resource coaches walk individuals through a four-step assessment of their relationships, physical health, mental health and spiritual health, and help the person put together a plan to bring their life into balance, she said.
Wellspring currently offers five different courses offered in a group setting for the following populations:
– “Living Grace,” a 15-week group for people who have a diagnosis of a mental illness such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia or another, or those who believe they live with a mental illness;
– “Family Grace,” a 15-week group for family members of people with mental illnesses;
– “Redefine Grace,” a 10-week group for young adults age 13 to 18 that provides “simple and innovative” mental health solutions and helps them navigate self-discovery and social media;
– “Learning to Live Well,” a 15-week evidence- and faith-based group for people coming out of addiction, which provides practical guidelines for individuals to stay free of addiction, and;
-”First Line,” a course especially for first-responders, including police, firefighters and EMS that helps those who have experienced trauma through their profession and developed post-traumatic stress disorder process that trauma, and provides tools to help them from being as affected by trauma in the future.
All of the groups are led by highly trained peers, Colclazier said. While materials for the courses cost about $20, most people’s materials are paid for through a scholarship program, she said.
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Wellspring Center open house
1 to 7 p.m. Friday
1551 E. New Road, Greenfield (inside Brandywine Community Church)
- Refreshments: Coffee Bar/Light Food & Snacks
- Gift Basket Giveaway
- Walk through the Wellspring Center space
- View the Wellspring group rooms
- Hear participant testimonies
- Meet the program’s Resource Coach Team
- View group material
More information is available by calling (317) 462-2015 or visiting wellspringind.org.
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