Awareness of the mental health crisis has been growing over the past decade, which has led to an increase of Americans receiving more heightened care in this regard.
Residents in Moniteau County will be able to visit with mental health therapists soon, as Burrell Behavioral Health is to open a location in California.
Burrell recently received a grant of $4 million from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to help expand the organization into central and southwest Missouri.
The grant will be distributed over the next two years with $2 million being received each year.
Burrell is the second-largest certified community behavioral health center in Missouri and one of the third largest in the nation to continue to expand its model and improve access and quality care throughout its 17-county span. An estimated 1,200 additional people will have access to mental health care, due to this expansion.
The expansion will cover services for individuals with serious mental illness, substance abuse disorders with a focus on opioid abuse, children and youth with serious emotional disturbances, and those with behavioural health disorders occurring concurrently with substance-use disorders.
Along with the services to be applied, the expansion also will include a special emphasis on increasing access to mental health care in a variety of locations, such as clients' homes, schools, emergency rooms, primary care facilities and community centers. Services for returning veterans, individuals with HIV and AIDS, as well as the homeless, will also be areas of emphasis to be broadened by the grant.
The Department of Health and Human Services classified the 17 counties in central and southwest Missouri included in the expansion as areas "highly medically under served."
Even without the expansion, Burrell offers an extensive range of help for those who ask. Those are individual therapy and counseling, addiction recovery, psychiatric and medication management, educational and therapeutic groups, crisis intervention, adult stabilization, case management, residential treatment, diagnostic testing and evaluation and even developmental disability support. Also available are autism services and online support.
In an effort to put more focus on conquering mental health issues, Burrell Behavioral Health President and CEO C.J. Davis expressed his hope for the grant in a press release.
"Burrell Behavioral Health is committed to the well-being of the more than 880,000 Missourians we serve," Davis said. "We strive to make behavioural health care and access to it an understandable, easy and stress-free experience. This grant helps us move closer to accomplishing that mission."