RANDOLPH, Utah. October 2, 2019. Beth Smith, Director
of Bear River Mental Health outlined
this year’s mental health area plan.
“Bear River Mental Health serves all individuals, regardless
of age or ability to pay, who are experiencing a mental health crisis;
including suicide ideation, panic attacks, uncontrollable behavior, or
situations involving a threat to self or others. Under-insured or uninsured
children, youth, and their families, individuals involved in the legal system,
and all Medicaid eligible individuals, may qualify for service.
Bear River Mental Health provides services to individuals
residing in Box Elder, Cache, and Rich counties. There are convenient locations throughout
Northern Utah where children, families, and adults of all ages can access
quality service. More information can be found at brmh.com.”
Each year a document is prepared to set goals and
directives. It also responds to changes that
happen in the legislature for the upcoming year.
Telehealth is becoming a good way to help rural
counties. They received a grant for Rich
County Telehealth this last year. BRMH
worked with the schools and were able to provide $15,000 of services through
the specially designed program which is HIPAA compliant through the Telehealth
computer, and then were also granted $30,000 for a trained professional to
come to Randolph, Laketown and Garden City.
The grant goes on for another year.
Smith said that they believe they can double the amount of services to
Rich County this year.
Cary Thomas is
the therapist who is assigned to the schools one day a week. Last year the legislature gave money for more services Rich County which will be used
to provide an extra half day.
Thomas works in the Garden City after 3 p.m. so that she can
work with the parents and other adults. It
has been shown that whole family therapy is needed in many cases and having a
facility in Garden City makes that possible.
Students are either self-referred or the local school will refer a
student.
There is also a need for a licensed social worker for Rich
County part time. Smith said, “We’d like to get Telehealth in
the jail . We are seeing the technology
work. There is a HIPAA compliant computer which protects privacy and allows the
client can talk directly to the therapist.”
The problem is finding qualified people in the county for
part time work.
BRMH has a social worker in the Cache County Jail to do
assessments. They have worked with
pharmaceutical companies to have medication on hand so that they can start
after a prescription has been given and be monitored while in jail. Sometimes
that affects the prisoner so that they can move on to a case worker for job placement
etc.
Commissioner Bill Cox, said that this will help because now so many are going back to jail over and over because of
mental health problems.
For the severely mentally ill, the BRMH will wrap themselves
around that person so that they are not lost, said Smith.
Stabilization and Mobilization Response (SMR) for youth in
crisis is available. A master level therapist and aide will be deploy in 30 minutes
which means it might be as much as two hours to get to Randolph. In
that case, the Rich County Sheriff will try to stabilize the situation until
the crisis team arrives. The previous crisis response has been to respond over the
phone and then have the person in crisis go to the closest ER.
This is
not effective and is very expensive. The
BRMH want to do a “Crisis Now” program
that has been done in Arizona and is hoping there will be funding for that next
year.
There were big cuts to both mental health and the health
department because, the legislature expanded Medicaid funding and cut the Utah funding for these programs assuming
that it would make up for their cuts.
But not as many people signed up for Medicaid because they didn’t
understand the changes, so the Medicaid funding was not there. The Bear River Health Department was forced
to lay off six people.
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