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Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

The student news site of Marquette University

Marquette Wire

MKE County budget to focus on mental health

Mental Health
Milwaukee County is striving to improve their mental health facilities.

Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele’s budget for the county, announced Sept. 29, proposes significant strides toward the improvement of mental health facilities in Milwaukee County. It addresses public transportation, health care coverage for county employees and the county sheriff’s budget.

In the address announcing his 2012 budget, Abele said the focus of mental health care in the county needs to be in the community, rather than in an institutional setting. His budget takes the $3 million emergency medical services subsidy in the Behavioral Health Division budget and puts it into devoting more resources to building community-based mental health services.

The budget calls for crisis resource centers, which focus on community support and reintegration to help people overcome their mental illnesses, to be built on the north side of Milwaukee as well as in other parts of the county. The South Side Crisis Resource Center at 2057 S. 14th Street is a model that needs to be replicated, Abele said in his address.

The Crisis Resource Center is run by Transitional Living Services Inc., a local organization that provides various mental health services and advocacy. President and CEO Peg DuBord said she is extremely grateful for Abele’s praise of the center, but realizes the contents of the budget are not certain.

“We are hopeful that more crisis resource centers modeled after ours will be built in the county, but there are still a few more hurdles,” DuBord said, noting that Abele’s budget has yet to be approved.

The Crisis Resource Center focuses on community-based psychiatric care and utilizes “peer-recovery specialists,” who have also suffered from mental illness and can help others with their first-hand experience. The center is not affiliated with any hospital or government agency, which DuBord said gives those seeking help specialized attention and fewer expenses.

“In a typical hospital, people seeking help for a mental illness wait endlessly behind those who need treatment for other illnesses,” DuBord said. “At the Crisis Resource Center, we bring them in and try to meet their immediate needs and help them plan a recovery.”

The issue of mental illness, especially among young adults, has been brought to the forefront by advocacy groups like Active Minds. The Marquette chapter of the group hosts bimonthly meetings to present information on mental health disorders and initiate healthy discussions about mental health, said Anne Spindler, Active Minds at Marquette publicity director.

“Our main focus is reducing and completely wiping out the stigma that surrounds mental illness,” said Spindler, a senior in the College of Communication.

Active Minds at Marquette hosts campus-wide events, such as the National Day Without Stigma, that promote mental health awareness and demonstrate the prevalence of mental health disorders.

The promotion of mental illness awareness and the best available resources is also a main objective at the Crisis Resource Center.

“We want people to know that the Crisis Resource Center is a more integrative, community-based setting where people get their immediate needs met,” DuBord said.

Abele’s budget also asks county employees to pay more toward their health care coverage and devotes 49 percent of the property tax levy to public safety. He said most of Milwaukee’s existing bus services will be preserved without raising general fares, despite a $15 million transit funding deficit. These proposals, along with those concerning mental health in the county, will go before the County Board for approval.

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