'Make Nebraska gold standard for wellness': Bridges to Mental Health shares its progress

'Make Nebraska gold standard for wellness': Bridges to Mental Health shares its progress Nearly all 93 of Nebraska’s counties are in need of mental health care. Bridges to Mental Health hopes to change that. “At least one in five Nebraskans are suffering with mental illness,” Bill Lydiatt, CEO of Clarkson Regional Health Services, said.

Two years ago, Lydiatt says mental health treatment was in a dangerous spot. “Ultimately, I found that workforce expansion is what is the most valuable need in Nebraska to improve our behavioral health workforce,” Lydiatt said. Lydiatt developed Bridges to Mental Health, which teaches health care workers how to diagnose and treat common mental disorders.

The conferences they host are filled with doctors who don’t normally practice psychology, including family physician Cheryl MacDonald. “As a primary care physician, we spend a lot of time not only taking care of medical diagnosis, but the mental part of life,” MacDonald said. MacDonald says mental and physical health are intertwined, and she wants to address both. “If you’re not taking care of the full picture, you’re not really giving people the justice they deserve,” MacDonald said.

Over the last two years, more than 500 people, including doctors and surgeons, from Nebraska and western Iowa, have gone to these sessions. Lydiatt says they bring big ideas and even bigger questions, which help the program evolve. “For example, we didn’t use to do any ADHD or substance abuse,” Lydiatt explained. “We expanded it.” Despite expansion, there are still gaps in the system. “Things like transportation, housing, food insecurity, trauma, so there are many things that we need to help improve,” Lydiatt said.

Bridges to Mental Health will be hosting another conference in November. The program also plans to expand its events towards teachers and educators.

Source: https://www.ketv.com/article/nebraska-bridges-to-mental-health-shares-progress/65810704