We're back! And we're back

with another great mental health symposium

14th Annual State of the State Luncheon Flyer: left page right page

Rotarians for Mental Health will partner with the Denver Southeast Rotary Club for an educational morning and lunch all about mental health, and particularly about the challenges facing Colorado's children and teens.  Suicide has become the leading cause of death for Colorado's children. 

Please join us on Thursday, March 10, for the State of the State Luncheon and Mental Health Symposium Addressing the Youth Mental Health Crisis. The Symposium begins with coffee at 8:30 a.m. and the first presentation at 9.  The event will be at the Hyatt Regency Denver Tech Center, 7800 E. Tufts Ave., Denver, Ground Floor. 

That State of the State Luncheon, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Denver Southeast, will begin at noon. Governor Jared Polis will deliver State of the State comments. The keynote speaker will be Missy Franklin, five-time Olympic Gold swimming medalist. She will share her path to becoming an Olympic champion, her perspective on the Olympics and her own mental health journey.

The Symposium will feature two sessions, from 9 to 10:05 and 10:25 to 11:30 a.m., each with three options for presentations:

• Talking to Teens About Mental Health
• Question, Persuade, Refer: Preventing Youth Suicide
• Youth in Recovery: A Panel of Young Adults and Teens

and

• When It Doesn't Go Away: Trauma, Our Students and Our Classrooms
• Youth Suicide Risk and Youth Driven Mitigation Techniques
• Next Steps for the Adolescent Marijuana Epidemic

The Symposium is free. Register for the lunch at sos.dserotary.org. The registration deadline is Monday, March 7.

 

'Rotary Connects' -- a success in providing cellphones to assure continuing mental health care

When community mental health centers moved to “telehealth” because of COVID-19, some clients had no means to connect for their mental health care, despite the common perception that “everyone has a cell phone today.”

Rotarians for Mental Health took action. Our group obtained $20,000 as a Disaster Response Grant from The Rotary Foundation.

And we created Rotary Connects – providing critically needed cell phones to 600 vulnerable clients, keeping them connected to their therapists and prescribers at nine Colorado mental health centers. These centers provide hope and support to individuals struggling with mental health issues and substance abuse disorders in the Denver seven-county metro area. Also benefiting were mental health clients in Clear Creek, Gilpin, Grand, Morgan, Summit and southern Weld counties.

With Rotary Connects funds, these centers identified their clients needing cell phones and put smart phones in their hands. Some cell phone companies offered deeply discounted phones and services for this purpose.

Curt Harris is governor of District 5450 with its 61 clubs. He said, “I am very proud of Rotarians for Mental Health and the many clubs in our district that are responding to this pandemic with compassion, generosity and inventiveness. Rotary Connects certainly meets a critical need of some of the most vulnerable members of our communities.”

Rotary governor praises Rotary Connects leader

At the District's virtual annual conference in late summer, Harris awarded special recognition to Seth Patterson, a co-chair of Rotarians for Mental Health and the chairman of the Rotary Connects project. District Governor Harris expressed appreciation for Patterson's vision, coordination, perseverance and leadership in achieving success and making a real difference in the very difficult pandemic environment.

Hans Wiik, a co-chair of Rotarians for Mental Health and member of the Rotary Club of Boulder, recalls how the group first heard of the problem back in March. "The therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists at Mental Health Partners, serving Boulder and Broomfield counties, became acutely aware of this need when clients could not be reached after clinic sites closed due to COVID-19. They needed to connect to clients to confirm appointments, conduct therapy, approve medication refills or schedule lab work as required with certain medications.”

Further, “To support clients’ various therapy-related needs and also for connecting to other resources in the community -- crisis lines, transportation, shelters, food pantries -- phones became essential.”

The need was the same for other mental health centers, including AllHealth Network, Aurora Mental Health Center, Centennial Mental Health Center, Community Reach Center, Jefferson Center for Mental Health, Mental Health Center of Denver, Mental Health Partners, Mind Springs Health and North Range Behavioral Health. The centers, especially those with walk-in services for assessment and support, recognized the immediate isolation of clients without smart phones.

Sarah is a case manager at Mental Health Center of Denver. She shared this account: “One of my clients was extremely grateful for the phone. I am also extremely grateful, as I now have a way to contact this person. It’s made delivering medications and doing wellness checks much easier. Staying in contact is more important than ever right now, and we wouldn’t have been able to do this without the phone. Please give the donor a big thank-you from me.”

Though the centers now have moved back to in-person therapy and other assistance, in varying degrees, telehealth also continues, and probably will be used for years to come.

Rotarians for Mental Health has 19 member clubs in the Rotary district. It is best known for its annual mental health symposium, held in connection with the Denver Southeast Rotary Club’s State of the State Luncheon. This year’s symposium focused on suicide prevention. The organization also encourages clubs to adopt mental health projects.

Rotary’s motto is “Service Above Self.” Rotarians for Mental Health demonstrates that through Rotary Connects. Individual clubs in the district also have responded to the pandemic and community crisis, many supporting local food banks.

The Rotary Foundation provided $4 million of grants to districts, which could receive a maximum of $25,000 each and choose how to allocate it. District 5450 prioritized mental health needs. Rotarians for Mental Health received $20,000 and created Rotary Connects. Another $5,000 went to Colorado Crisis Partners, a statewide, 24/7 crisis intervention system that gives Coloradans greater access to crisis services, including telehealth, regardless of their ability to pay.