No Wrong Door Brainstorming Results
Thank you to everyone who attended June 29, 2022 brainstorming event!
We’ve collected, reviewed and organized the hundreds of ideas you shared with us at the June 29 community brainstorming session. Beth Clay, Executive Director, shared a summary report at our July 14 member meeting.
For a summary, check out the following resources:
- Member meeting slides, which includes a summary of the brainstorming results
- Zoom recording of the July 14 member meeting
- Slides from the June 29 brainstorming session
- Waiting list brainstorm ideas (Excel spreadsheet)
- Woeful community brainstorm ideas (Excel spreadsheet)
- Mental health workforce brainstorm ideas (Excel spreadsheet)
For 10 years, The Connection has been working toward our shared vision for access to care, the aspirational concept of ‘No Wrong Door’ – meaning that no matter a person’s priority issue, no matter which community agency they access first, a caring connection to mental health treatment and support would be achieved. ‘No Wrong Door’ encompasses issues related to access, workforce quality, and connection to the right level of care, with the right provider, at the right time for everyone.
On June 29, more than 60 community members, from various agencies and organizations, came together to dream up ideas – big and small, to solve three urgent mental health issues that our community is facing – long waiting lists to see mental health providers; our mental health workforce shortage; and the mental health fallout of the pandemic – our “woeful” community.
Long waiting lists
• Who is on the wait lists?
• Are they even waiting for the ‘right’ service for them?
• Can we meet any needs while waiting?
• Do we need a new service line?
• Can we triage more effectively?
• Meeting the acuity, urgency, complexity
Mental health workforce
• Addressing Burnout
• Leaving jobs for private practice/telehealth
• Not just leaving the job, leaving the field
• Job hopping among local agencies
• Licensure process is taking too long at the state level
• Cost to agencies of supervision
• Lack of diversity and cultural competency
Woeful community
• ‘Languishing’ as a chronic condition
• Rebuilding and reengaging our individual, family and community protective factors that were lost in the pandemic isolation
• We need a general public, non-clinical, community-initiated, humanitarian response
• Spreading hopeful messaging normalizing recovery
What’s next?
We are the process of continuing to review the ideas and organize them into the following strategies:
• Solutions that can be carried out by individual member agencies
• Solutions that will best be implemented by a collaboration of member agencies through The Connection
• Solutions that are a good fit for direct ARPA funding
• Solutions that could access ARPA funding through an application process
We plan to organize short-term work groups and invite stakeholders and community members to participate as we move the work forward and develop solutions. Stay tuned!