Moving forward on mental health

Steve Ryman of Iteneris Coaching and Consulting moderated a public meeting Thursday in which residents and officials discussed pressing needs in Baker County’s mental health treatment system. (Baker City Herald/Ed Merriman)

That was one of several suggestions for improving mental health services discussed during a public meeting Thursday.

Others included:

• Hiring professional staff to provide more high-end mental health services locally

• A concerted effort to remove the stigma associated with seeking or receiving mental health services

• Increased integration with New Directions Northwest and other partners

• More outreach to schools, and mentoring programs to prevent youth with early signs of mental health, family or social problems from sliding into the criminal system

• Beefing up family support services and parenting classes to help families cope with children or other family members with mental health issues.

“There doesn’t seem to be the conflict and sparring that there was two years ago,” Ryman said.

Ryman said the goal of Thursday’s meeting was to get ideas for the MVMH board to consider incorporating into its annual work plan.

MVMH provides services to people with a variety of mental health problems, as well as individuals with developmental disabilities, and those needing treatment for drug and alcohol addictions.

Mary Jo Carpenter, a MVMH board member and director of Community Connection of Baker County, reported that concerns raised two years ago about a lack of transportation options for delivering mental health services to youths in outlying areas such as Haines, Richland and Halfway have been addressed with Community Connection buses.

“Transportation for people to get to appointments in Baker City and the outlying areas is one of the big needs out there that has been met,” Carpenter said.

However, Gary Dielman, a former member of the MVMH board, said there’s still a shortage of professional mental health staff needed to provide services to a growing number of people with depression, possibly related to the recession, and to serve areas of the county outside Baker City.

“Pine Eagle hasn’t had a mental health practitioner out there for several years, and they really need one,” Dielman said.

Dielman called on MVMH to open up its meetings to the public more than once a year. He also offered to fill a vacancy on the county’s Mental Health Advisory Board. 

During the meeting, Vicki Levinger, who is retiring as MVMH director at the end of this month, introduced her replacement, Jennifer Yturriondobeitia, who officially takes over as director Feb. 1.

“I think it is going to be a very exciting thing to have fresh eyes,” Levinger said of the board’s decision to hire Yturriondobeitia.

“I am excited for Jen and for the future of Mountain Valley Mental Health,” Levinger said.

Yturriondobeitia, who goes by Jen Y, said she has accepted the position, although salary negotiations are not final yet.

She said the pay range for mental health directors in other small counties in Oregon runs between $70,000 and $80,000.

Jen Y comes to MVMH from Lifeways in Ontario.

She said her experience as a coordinator of rural services will help her as she strives to increase MVMH’s presence in outlying areas of Baker County.

“For the last six months I have been looking at new technologies for the rural counties,” she said.

Jen Y said video conferencing technologies will help MVMH deliver mental health services to the Pine Eagle Clinic and other outlying areas, but parents at the meeting pointed out that while teleconferencing is helpful, clients often benefit more from face-to-face sessions.

Levinger said telecommunications is “a creative way to provide services when we don’t have somebody to go out.”

Beverly Spencer, a single mom who works with MVMH half days in the schools, said making the transition from junior high to high school is a troubling time for many youths.

“As a single mom with four kids, I felt a lack of support,” which is one reason she started volunteering with, and later working part time for, MVMH.

“There’s a lot of kids out there that are hurting and need help,” Spencer said, adding that she’d like to see mental health counselors and advisors spending more time in the schools help kids avoiding pitfalls.

“I would like to see every kid get an assessment,” said Fred Warner Jr., chairman of the Baker County Board of Commissioners. “There are so many kids with so many problems, and it is hard to get them in the system.”

MVMH board member Milo Pope said he wants to see a greater emphasis on identifying youths and others who have mental health or substance abuse problems and get them into treatment before they wind up in the criminal justice system.

“We need to work harder to divert people from the criminal justice system,” Pope said. “I’m willing to work with Mountain Valley to participate in a decriminalization program.”

Spencer, along with Kevin Campbell of Greater Oregon Behavioral Health Inc., also pointed out that it’s less expensive to help kids locally rather than sending them to distant treatment facilities.

Jen Y has experience developing and securing grant funding for mentoring programs, which she said helps troubled kids cope with problems at school and in life.

“Mentoring programs are one of the best and fastest programs to build,” Jen Y said, adding that building mentoring programs to help children in area schools will be one of her first missions as the new MVMH director.

Campbell said one thing he’d like to see MVMH work toward this year is bringing in the professional staff needed to provide high-end treatment, because he believed “too many folks are sent out of the county for services.”

“It’s not uncommon to pay $10,000 to $12,000 for institutional treatment for children who are sent from this county to Portland” or other places, Campbell said.

With roughly 10 percent of the county’s workers unemployed, Campbell said this is a good time for MVMH to get the message out that “there is this opportunity you may want to consider” becoming a foster parent.

Larry Levinger, a former chairman of the MVMH board, talked about designating a holding room at St. Elizabeth Health Services to better treat people who have both substance abuse and mental health issues.

“One of the things we’ve had on our list for years is a mental health hold room,” Levinger said. “Often people are brought to the emergency room drunk or high on drugs. They are so lit up you can’t analyze what’s wrong with them.”

In addition, he said, nursing staff at hospitals often being “terrified about having to deal with mentally ill patients.”

Campbell said veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as their families, are needing more mental health services, and that need is expected to continue for many years.

At the end of Thursday’s meeting, Jen Y said she has big shoes to fill in following Levinger, who worked more than 25 years with MVMH.

“I am very hopeful because most of the philosophy and vision you have for mental health is similar to what I have,” Jen Y said after listening to comments made during Thursday’s meeting.

She said she is confident the changes people asked for will come over time.

“When change comes too fast, there’s a rubber band effect — they come back,” Jen Y said. “My goal is for Mountain Valley Mental Health to be the beacon or model that other people look to and follow.”

She said she wants to provide a level of services and secure the necessary funding in a manner that is “sustainable through economic hard times and booms.”

“With good partners and good collaborators, we can make it stronger,” Jen Y said.