Community Benefit

The Children’s MOSAIC Project is a collaboration with local partners that is transforming the way mental health services are provided to children and youth in the Springfield, Lincoln and Jacksonville. To increase access to care, mental health screenings and services are available to children in community-based settings including primary care offices, schools and the Neighborhood of Hope in east Springfield. MOSAIC also offers training to providers and professionals, increasing the reach of Memorial Behavioral Health to provide effective services to children and their families.

Memorial Behavioral Health has embedded staff in Memorial Physician Services clinics and at SIU primary care and pediatric clinics to enhance integration of behavioral health care into primary care settings and make it easier for individuals to use our services.

The inability to pay for prescription medications is a major health issue in our community. Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) is a specialized outreach program to assist homeless individuals who have mental illness find housing, receive needed services and optimize wellness. Memorial Behavioral Health receives a federal grant for PATH each year and matches that grant with unreimbursed funds.

Memorial Behavioral Health provides access to pharmaceutical prescriptions for indigent individuals with mental illness who do not have health insurance or cannot afford to pay for medications out of pocket.

Employees at Memorial Behavioral Health provide their time and leadership to local community-based organizations on boards or community action committees.

Memorial Behavioral Health provides crisis intervention training for local law enforcement giving trainees nonviolent methods to address with people who have mental illnesses. It also provides suicide prevention training.

Memorial Behavioral Health sites of care serve as clinical settings for training acute psychiatric care to first-year psychiatric residents from Southern Illinois University School of Medicine and for St. John’s nursing students in outpatient psychiatric nursing care to enhance education.

Free, online self-assessments on the Memorial Behavioral Health website provide central Illinois residents the opportunity to assess their emotional well-being. Self- assessments are available for depression, bipolar disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and adolescent depression.

Public education and community awareness campaigns about mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, managing stress and a wide array of parenting topics are conducted by Memorial Behavioral Health’s Marketing and Training department.

Professional conferences sponsored by Memorial Behavioral Health enhance expertise and knowledge about treatment for a wide range of mental health issues.

Memorial Behavioral Health, in collaboration with Memorial Health System, is providing opportunities to help others when they are faced with a mental health issue by training individuals throughout Sangamon, Logan, Christian, and Morgan counties on Mental Health First Aid.

Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) is an international, evidence-based, teaching program giving community participants the ability to identify signs, symptoms, and risk factors of mental illness and substance abuse. During this eight-hour training, participants will be taught the tools to refer individuals in distress to the appropriate resources in effort to avoid a crisis situation. This training is funded by Memorial Health System, in response to the 2015 community health need assessment completed by Memorial’s four hospitals. Memorial Health System collaborated with multiple community partners to pay for the training costs of the Mental Health First Aid program, resulting in 27 certified trainers available to teach this program in central Illinois. MBH is leading the project and coordinating training sessions.