FEBRUARY 2024
Business & Professional Community Integrations
The Mental Health & Recovery Services Board (MHRSB) funds many business and professional community integrations to support adult behavioral health. Much like schools are a great place to reach youth with vital services, businesses are a great place to reach adults.
The Board helps connect small and mid-sized businesses' employees to mental health and recovery services through their Employee Assistance Program (EAP). The MHRSB's EAP goes through ENI and is called NexGen EAP Plus. They offer short-term counseling, career coaching, financial and legal consultations, mediation, wellness coaching, and more.
These small and mid-sized businesses have the opportunity to provide their employees with these additional mental health services as a part of the benefits package. The Board's EAP Navigator, Jennifer Mills, helps a business through the process of joining and then helps the employees sign up and use behavioral health services. The service is not only available to employees but also to employees' families.
Learn more about the Board's Employee Assitance Program (EAP) in this video with Jennifer Mills.
One employee shared this about their NexGen EAP Plus:
"My teenage son was having some problems regulating his emotions at school, and it was recommended he receive counseling. I reached out to the representative at NexGen and was happy to find out how easy the process was. My son was very happy with his counselor and surprised by how much he enjoyed the experience. My EAP saved me so much money and helped my son so much. I’m so thankful to have NexGen EAP.“
Another MHRSB community integration through businesses and professionals is the Mental Health Ambassadors program. The Ambassadors are representatives from within minority groups who help connect their community members to education and resources. Ambassadors also provide fellowship opportunities and help grow trust between mental health agencies and communities.
The program is currently for Black salon owners, barbers, and small business owners. They are often the center for community connection and hear more about people's lives. Mental Health Ambassadors become trained on how to respond to signs of mental illness and substance use through Mental Health First and other trainings. Ambassadors also learn about the local resources available. They then can help point their customers, friends, and community members to the right mental health resources. The goal for the program is to expand it to other minority groups to keep reaching underserved communities.
The Coordinator for the Mental Health Ambassadors, Elisa Bradley, shares about the Mental Health Ambassadors in this video.
Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) is a volunteer team of public safety and affiliate professionals serving fire, EMS, law enforcement, industry, education, and other organizations involved in any type of critical incident. They help people be more resilient and recover from a critically stressful incident. The CISM team is vital to helping our local professionals, businesses, and schools in times of crisis.
Crisis events the CISM team responds to are serious injury or line of duty death, the suicide of a colleague, the use of force with serious injury or death, and the death of a child. Other crisis incidents could include events with extensive media or social media coverage and incidents with significant community impact. The CISM team responds when a person in authority for that organization or institution requests them through the 24/7 HOPEline (1-800-567-4673).
Crises can be overwhelming and most people don't know what to do after one occurs. When the team responds, they bring work with the impacted group and provide information about stress, stress reactions, and making healthy choices following an event. Some of the confidential services provided are Pre-Incident Stress Education, Individual Peer Support, and Crisis Management Briefing. Learn more about CISM at wecarepeople.org/cism.
If you are in crisis call 1-800-567-HOPE (4673) or text 741 741.