photo by: Mackenzie Clark

Nicole Rials, urgent care director at Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center, leads a panel at the 2018 Behavioral Health Summit on June 27, 2018 at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

Nearly 100 local professionals in the fields of health care, law enforcement and nonprofit advocacy work attended an inaugural Behavioral Health Summit this past Wednesday at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

Speakers and panelists touched on a broad range of topics, and I could never boil it all down to one article. Instead, I wanted to share a handful of highlights from some sessions: things I starred in my notes, interesting facts and tidbits, and some concerns that I believe our community and others will have to face going forward.

Bringing everyone to the table

The morning began with a panel led by Nicole Rials, urgent care director at Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center. Other participants included Officer Amber Rhoden and Sgt. Ryan Halsted of the Lawrence Police Department, and Derrick Hurst, director of the integrated crisis team at LMH.

We’ve reported quite a bit on efforts to integrate services to support behavioral health patients experiencing crises in Douglas County. As a refresher, the integrated crisis team includes employees from LMH, Bert Nash and the local nonprofit agencies DCCCA, Heartland Community Health Center and Heartland Regional Alcohol and Drug Assessment Center.

What does that mean? Put simply, the emergency department at LMH is no longer just a place for patients experiencing a mental health crisis to wait until they can be transferred someplace else. Now, there are trained crisis clinicians, who are actually Bert Nash employees, available 24/7 at the hospital to help those patients begin treatment and have better experiences during the frightening early moments of their stays.

photo by: Mackenzie Clark

Derrick Hurst, director of the integrated crisis team at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, speaks during a panel at the 2018 Behavioral Health Summit on June 27, 2018 at the hospital. Next to him is Officer Amber Rhoden of the Lawrence Police Department.

Hurst said weekly meetings that bring all the agencies to the table — plus law enforcement, representatives of the Lawrence Community Shelter and hopefully other agencies in the near future — have begun to help identify and work through systemic barriers that are preventing people from getting the care or services they need.

“We’ve been able to identify some solutions literally within minutes,” he said, now that team members know more about what each agency has to offer. They’ve also started to determine how some policies, even long-standing ones, may need to change because they hinder patient access.

Beyond just the initial emergency visit, the team is also working to help ensure patients can and do get the follow-up care they need.

In Kansas, an ‘opioid concern’

Sandra Dixon, director of behavioral health services at DCCCA, spoke about substance use and abuse, treatment and recovery.

photo by: Mackenzie Clark

Sandra Dixon, director of behavioral health services at DCCCA, speaks about substance use and abuse, treatment and recovery at the 2018 Behavioral Health Summit on June 27, 2018 at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

There is growing awareness of the nationwide “opioid crisis,” as deaths from drug overdoses in the U.S. rose 21.4 percent from 2015 to 2016, and nearly two-thirds of those deaths involved illicit and/or prescription opioids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

However, Dixon said she would argue that in Kansas, we have an “opioid concern,” and “we need to be prepared” — but the No. 1 drug bringing people into treatment centers in this state continues to be methamphetamine.

Listen “What we’re seeing more and more in our treatment centers — and I can’t speak for anybody else — folks are injecting methamphetamine, and then right after, they’re injecting heroin,” Dixon said. “So you ramp up and then you try to come down, and that will kill you.”

With injected drugs comes the concern for the spread of infectious disease and HIV. When an attendee asked whether there are any local resources to reduce risks for needle users, neither Dixon nor anyone present had suggestions. (Searching later, I couldn’t find anything, either.)

One in 59: Autism spectrum disorders

In 2004, about 1 in 166 kids was diagnosed with autism. Now, that number is 1 in 59.

Resources are already scarce and waiting lists are long, said Sean Swindler of the University of Kansas’ Center for Autism Research and Training, or KCART.

photo by: Mackenzie Clark

Sean Swindler of the University of Kansas’ Center for Autism Research and Training, or KCART, addresses the crowd at the 2018 Behavioral Health Summit on June 27, 2018 at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

Swindler said research shows that one type of therapy in childhood, applied behavior analysis, is known to improve outcomes for kids with autism as certainly as we can say cigarettes cause cancer. But it requires 20 to 30 hours per week of intensive work, it’s expensive and there is a shortage of providers.

For adults with autism, options are also very limited. Swindler said 60 percent of those with autism do not qualify for the state’s Intellectually/Developmentally Disabled waiver, which provides support but requires an IQ of 70 or below.

So, Swindler said, he gets calls all the time from parents who are concerned about their 25-year-olds who will soon lose the coverage of their parents’ health insurance plans — and he has to impart the sad reality that there’s really nothing out there to help them.

“There are so many things that we need to develop to respond to this 1 in 59 need,” he said.

Difficult conversations

Kristin Vernon, director of counseling at Headquarters Counseling Center, shared a point I wanted to pass along. She explained why it’s important to be direct with people who you think might be showing signs of being suicidal.

photo by: Mackenzie Clark

Kristin Vernon, director of counseling at Headquarters Counseling Center, speaks at the 2018 Behavioral Health Summit on June 27, 2018 at Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

Listen“It’s incredibly hard to say to somebody, ‘I am suicidal,’ or ‘I’m thinking about dying,'” she said. “But being asked a question and being able to say ‘yes’ to somebody who’s just been straightforward and said, ‘I’m worried about you, are you thinking about suicide?’ can be a huge relief.”

Asking directly opens a door and shows you’re willing to talk about it.

As a side note, a fun fact for those who didn’t know: Headquarters actually got its start in the late ’60s as a drug crisis center — often serving as a place to “crash” during bad trips.