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Beyond the Stigma: Why Companies Can't Afford to Ignore Mental Health · Voices For Suicide Prevention

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to our June episode of Voices for Suicide Prevention.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: As we like to say, our conversations are real talk, real honest, real life.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I'm Stephanie Bucher.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: And I'm Scott Light.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: We are so pleased this month to welcome two dynamic leaders from both the corporate and advocacy space to talk about mental and behavioral health in the workplace.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: What a dynamic subject, and boy.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: This is really nuanced too, and we're really going to get into it here with our two guests.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: So let me introduce you to them right now.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Teresa Lample is CEO of the Ohio Council of Behavioral Health and Family Services Providers, and Ashley Matthews is Vice president of tax for the crane group.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Welcome to you both.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having us Excited to be here.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Teresa, let's go ahead and get started with our conversation.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Most recent report on growing a healthy workforce in Ohio from the Ohio Council, and addressing a workforce crisis at the same time.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: So lots of data pulling in the information.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: The demand for mental health and substance use services, unrelenting, we're talking one in four US adults reporting experiencing a mental health condition each year.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: And, unfortunately, the availability of treatment and support and help not keeping up leaving many without access to that kind of care.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: And so help us understand from the issue first and challenges here in Ohio.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: So when we think about the impact of mental health and substance use, we know that it's impacting it one in four, as you just said.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: Substance use we know that it's impacting it one in four, as you just said, and that means basically every family at some point in time is dealing with either a mental health or a substance use condition.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: Yet when we look at the behavioral health workforce, one of the things we find is access is incredibly challenging, and the data from the Centers for Disease Control tells us that at any given time, as an adult, only about 50% of adults can access mental health care and for kids it's about 44% and, unfortunately, in the substance use space it's about 23%.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: So we have significant challenges, even though we have incredible demand, and there's lots of reasons.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: One was we still have issues with stigma and not everybody's going to be willing to access care.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: But our biggest challenge is, frankly, that the demand for care has far outpaced the number of people available for care, and some of that is due to it's a complicated issue.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: It's been growing over time.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: We've known for about the last two decades that we have had a growing workforce shortage in healthcare, but then specifically in behavioral healthcare, because we don't always treat mental health and substance use as health conditions.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: So what's really really working to reset that?
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Brain health is essential health and I think during the pandemic we finally really realized how important mental health is to overall health and well-being.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: So there's been this concerted effort of late to increase the behavioral health workforce.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: But we're challenged.
• 3:10
  Speaker 3: It's hard work.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: It's 24-7, 365.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: We humans are very human-y and very you know our issues don't happen neatly in an eight to five schedule.
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: So it's being able and available.
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: Many of the jobs require a master's degree or higher in training.
• 3:26
  Speaker 3: Yet the average pay for a person with a master's degree is around $60,000 to $65,000.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: And if you don't have a master's degree you're making somewhere in the $30,000 to $35,000.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: So you end up then with lots of academic debt which becomes a deterrent to going into the jobs, and so low pay is a challenge.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: Plus then just the burden of the work.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: And while we've made efforts of late to make some investments to encourage people to come into the professions, what we find is the workforce shortages have gotten even worse.
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: Even in three years we saw a 10% increase in the number of health professional shortages for mental health care in the state of Ohio.
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: So we do see, in the substance use disorder mental health treatment area, access to care is incredibly important.
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: You know we go through stages where we're turning folks away and then you know you go through seasons where our beds aren't full, and so we find that it's really hard to hit that high demand, that peak season, when folks are ready for care.
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: We just don't have the room for them for care.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: And so we at Mary Haven are always looking at ways that we can expand our inpatient beds, outpatient services, partnering with other organizations, and always looking at that continuum of care.
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: And how do we make sure that folks that we can work with can continue on their journey after they leave us?
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: And I think a piece that plays into that when you're an employer, you know really thinking about the employer side of this is we.
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: You know employers offer a health insurance benefit and one of the challenges in access is does the benefit actually cover with the service that the individual needs?
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Most insurance benefits don't pay for preventative mental health or substance use care.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: You get one well visit and you may get a question or two about are you depressed or are you anxious or using substances, but that's the full extent.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: And then accessing services through your typical private insurance is really challenging and may not cover the continuum of care that Ashley was just talking about.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: It may cover individual counseling or a group session or maybe a hospitalization, but nothing in between.
• 5:49
  Speaker 3: And that's one of the big challenges that we face is helping people understand what their benefit is and then making sure that we are treating the brain and diseases of the brain the same way we treat diseases of the heart and the lungs, and so it's actually that's around insurance parity, that's what it's called and making sure that everybody understands that your insurance company is obligated to treat a mental health and a substance use condition the same way they would treat a physical health condition, like if you had a heart attack or a broken bone.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: But many times we find that access isn't the same and the availability of care is far different and the wait list much longer.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Which is partially what's driven the workforce shortages is we don't have equity in how they pay for the services and the disease conditions, let alone then the practitioners delivering that care.
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: And I think the data is there to show that preventative care and mental health, you know, increases positive outcomes is good for business, right?
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: We have folks that are leaving missing work, you know, so many hours per week because of these illnesses and I think health insurers are really good at explaining to businesses.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: You know, if you add this preventative care measure, if you do this as a wellness program, if you do XYZ, your claims will go down.
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: You'll save some money.
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: Right, we're not good at that.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: From a mental health perspective.
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: We're not great at saying, hey, offer these preventative programs for your employees, remove the barriers to care, which is one thing that we do at Crane Group is, you know, partnering with professionals to get sort of priority scheduling or remove that weight that so many of us struggle with to get in and see a mental health professional, and those things really do impact positive outcomes and, do you know, reduce premiums and health care costs.
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: But that's not a topic of conversation that employers are having with their health insurers on a regular basis.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Well, you really teed us up here, because Stephanie and I found a few data points here, and why don't we click through a few of these, ashley, to your point each year, the US forfeits nearly 300 billion from GDP from costs associated with untreated mental health and substance use disorders.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: And then we also found one other statistic too, and I put a big old asterisk beside this one.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: There was an Ohio State University study, and it found that the opioid epidemic cost Ohio between $66 to 8.8 billion a year.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: That's about the same amount of money that we spend on K through 12 education.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: Staggering.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Jump in, help us, help us flesh this out.
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: You know, when we found at Mary Haven that when an individual is not treated for substance use disorder or a mental health crisis, it's about 15 K per individual rate.
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: And so that's kind of what these numbers are showing us that it's a huge cost, um, and with treatment, you know.
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: The other side of the coin is they're more productive, right, and about 42% more productive than they would otherwise be had they not been treated.
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: I've tried to think about this as opportunity loss cost.
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: You know we think about everything we talk about, particularly when it comes to funding and state investment.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: A lot in four people in your workforce, or one in four people, are dealing, if not directly, with a family member.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: One of the other statistics that also strikes me, and probably because I'm a parent but 53% of working families, a parent misses a day of work every single month just to attend to their child's mental, emotional and behavioral health needs.
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: We are seeing this growing crisis of mental health, depression, anxiety and, frankly, some early age substance use, whether it's vaping or marijuana, alcohol use and we're starting earlier and earlier.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: And so how do we stop that?
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: How do we teach and prevent entry into those?
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: But parents, that's a lot of time that parents are missing work.
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: We also know that, and that was a study done here in Columbus at Nationwide Children's that found that.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: They also found that about 55% of parents report that their productivity is less on a weekly basis because they're having to manage issues with their child, whether it's at school, whether it's with an appointment, a doctor, a counselor.
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: And so we know there's this growing impact because our younger people, they're not afraid to talk about the mental health challenges, and that's good.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: We're overcoming the stigma, they're recognizing it and they're asking for help in ways we've not seen before, and so we have all of this opportunity to make a difference.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: Yet it's having a cost on our businesses and then it's a cost to taxpayers as we're trying to fund these services, and sometimes there's a cost shift because what the private insurance companies aren't paying for, somebody else is making it up, whether it's a school system, whether it's an after-school program, whether it's an employer saying, hey, I'm going to offer this wellness program because it's the right thing to do for the people that I care about and who are doing a good job working for me.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Or we're dealing with unfunded services.
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: So you're looking at Medicaid or private dollar having to make it up.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: So there's a lot that we could be investing that makes more revenue and because we have a healthy workforce.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: So if we had a healthy workforce, we'd be spending less money on some of these services.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: If I could follow up on that with you, teresa.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: So a lot of what our organization does, what your organization does, is help to educate and advocate on behalf of some of these issues.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: When we're talking to those stakeholders, those policymakers, I'm just curious, you don't have to call out any names or anything.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I'm just curious, the reception that you're getting when you're bringing these types of things up to them.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Is that message getting through?
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: So I think so.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: I think that in the 20 years I've been doing advocacy at the state and federal level, what I would say is when I started, we used to have to explain why mental health mattered, and we used to have to explain why mental health mattered, and now we don't have to explain why mental health matters.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: Now it's really.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: We can have the conversation about what's the cost savings.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: When we look at prevention, for example, we know that with kids just a $602 investment in a prevention program in a school, for example, by the time that child reaches the ages of 23, if we've taught them good coping skills and resiliency and how to manage basic challenges and frustrations in life, we can save almost $7,800 per child.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: So it's big.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: We know that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: That's an old saying, but it's so very true If we just teach people some basic skills and we can prevent entry into a longer term episode or understand that they can get help earlier, rather than waiting until they're deep into a depression or so anxious that they're not functioning or using a substance to the point it's causing major problems in their lives.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: So we can now start having these conversations around why things like prevention matters.
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: We actually were asked in the last General Assembly to put together a report that says tell us what the cost savings is.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: Because we want to take it to some of our other conservative partners and say look, this matters.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: And so we have seen some investment in prevention and we do see that now that we're having this conversation about the cost.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: And part of why we wanted to really work on what is the economic cost of this is because we know that there's data, there's information that for every dollar we spend in mental health or substance use care, we're generating four in return in either reduced health savings or increased productivity.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: So if you want to grow the economy, you have to have healthy people.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: You do Ashley to you with Stephanie's question from the corporate side.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: If you've got Acme Corporation that comes to you and says, okay, ashley, why should corporate America jump in here and why should we get to the tip of the spear when it comes to mental health?
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: What would you say to that company?
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: I would say that it's not just a moral argument of whether or not you should support your employees, it's also an economic one.
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: And so all of the statistics, all of the things we've said before, you know workforces ebb and flow and similar to how there are struggles finding mental health professionals, there are struggles finding, you know, skilled workers in all areas.
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: So to me, it is one more good fact for your company that can encourage employees to come work for you Supporting mental health, having, you know, additional insurance over what's required to help with preventative care, to help with, you know, counseling sessions, you know other types of stress management or nutrition benefits that can help folks, you know, really manage their holistic health, which we know impacts mental health significantly.
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: And so I would say, you know it's about doing the right thing and supporting your employees.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: But when you do the right thing and support your employees, it'll also help your bottom line.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Helps the bottom line and it helps retention.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: You know, teresa, to your point about this younger generation.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: They want that holistic approach.
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: They and you know what they'll raise the volume about.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: They want more PTO and they want more time off there.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, when they're there at work they're going to put in the hours, they're going to give you 150%, but away from work they do want those services.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: I'm glad they're vocal about it.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: Well, and I think that's the reciprocal value that we're talking about, right, I mean, it's not.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: You know, we've heard, and when you look at the data and I like data so when you look at the overall workforce, you know we are still not at the same level of productivity from a workforce than we were prior to the pandemic and it's stubborn.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: We're kind of at this like 63, 64% and we cannot seem to rebound and people don't realize that what we lost during the pandemic was, you know, it's really an impact from the mental health side.
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: So you have people who died from COVID and that was a huge loss of people.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: But the opiate overdose epidemic we have lost hundreds of thousands of people year over year and those are people that we lost from the workforce.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: So general labor is struggling to find workers because they need a healthy workforce, but we don't always think about giving people a sick day when they're not feeling mentally well or if they're struggling with a substance use condition.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: We don't yet in all businesses think of allowing people to use that sick day unless it's a physical health issue.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: You look bad.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: You've got a fever.
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: We can see it on your face.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: You can see that you've had all these physical symptoms or you've struggled, You've had a surgery, you've got things that we can physically see or systems other than the brain that are impacted, and it's like, oh yeah, take a sick day, but we still have to normalize in all of our businesses that you need to be well, and wellness means mentally well as well as physically well, and I think that's still a challenge that we have to work through, because it is a reciprocal in the workforce.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: And then the challenge is, though I don't always have a mental health professional available when I'm not feeling mentally well, and so how do we create the same opportunities and pathways to access care, even short-term care, the same way that we do with physical health care?
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Let's pivot just a little bit and talk about each of your journeys to this work.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: And, ashley, you are on the board of Mary Haven, which has served more than 350,000 people since the early 1950s with mental health and substance use.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: What experience connected you to Mary Haven?
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: Well, substance use disorder impacted my life at a very young age.
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: My father was in and out of treatment my entire life, his entire adult life, and unfortunately his battle ended when he died by suicide at age 36.
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: You know, when I started at Crane Group, I was coming up on that 35, that 35, 36 year age, and it kind of puts things in perspective, right, you can try to put yourself in his shoes, or what was he going through.
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: Or, man, my kids are really young.
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: I couldn't imagine that happening.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: And so it really the timing worked out well, because at Crane Group there's a program we do called Crane on Board, and we really encourage employees to seek out a cause that they're passionate about and then participate with a non-profit in some meaningful way.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: So that may be joining a board, that may be joining a committee first, that may be doing some volunteer work, but we really leave it up to the employee to really decide where their passion lies.
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: And so, given the firsthand experience I had with the struggle of substance use disorder and mental illness from seeing my father struggle, but I also had experience on how it impacted my siblings and me and the rest of my family, and so I felt really strongly that I could combine that personal experience as well as my professional experience and make a difference in this community.
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: I felt strongly that someone that understands the client and their journey and their struggles, not only inside treatment but before treatment and outside treatment, and how do we ensure that our clients are set up for success to continue their sober journey after they leave us.
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: And so I felt really strongly that I could participate and you know I've had a great time, you know, really working with the team at Mary Haven just furthering our mission, you know, helping individuals lead healthy lives free from addiction and mental illness by providing education, treatment and support, and Mary Haven does a great job at that and I'm happy to support that mission.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Can I ask what year your dad died by suicide?
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: 2002.
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: That's not long ago, no.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: That is not long ago.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: And that is not long ago and I know we're going to get to this a little bit later, but maybe we can jump into it now in terms of what have you both seen over these last years, couple of decades, with a very personal experience for you, actually in terms of the changing of the stigmas and the stereotypes around mental health?
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: The stigma is definitely changing and I think it's great.
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: I am one of those people that is not afraid to talk about my experience, my personal journey with mental illness, my family's journey with mental illness.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: I always wanna be that person that speaks about it and maybe give somebody else a little confidence to either speak about it or go get help.
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: And so I personally, in my circles whether it's my professional circle, personal circle make sure that I speak about that when appropriate.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: But I do think, as much as social media is really great, social media can also have some downsides.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: But I do really respect what social media has done for the mental health field in encouraging people to talk about it or seeing signs of themselves in another content creator or video or TikTok that says, hey, maybe this isn't normal, maybe this is something that I could get treatment for to feel better.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: I definitely think the opportunities for treatment and the resources are easier to find in that case, and I think we're doing a better job through the social media of trying to meet people where they are.
• 22:48
  Speaker 4: As you mentioned, you know, a mental health crisis is an eight to five, and so where can a person get support?
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: And it's maybe they saw a video on TikTok that linked them to suicide prevention hotline or something else.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: It really is an opportunity for people to say, hey, there's people like me out here and I may be having a crisis you know crisis at like midnight on a Tuesday.
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: I'm going to look at some of these videos, I'm going to see that there is hope, I'm going to see that there is help and then maybe I'll call first thing the next morning and make an appointment.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: I think, too, you know what's changed.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: I remember when Prozac was first introduced into the market in the mid 1980s and it was shocking that we actually might have a medication that's available to treat depression, and how we villainized it, frankly in the early mid 80s about it was a problem, and now we were just depending on a medication instead of just pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, because that was always.
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: You know the solution right, you just need to pray more, you need to be a better person.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: It's self, you know, it's a self problem, not a brain problem.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: And so I think now today, we do talk about it more openly, maybe too much, maybe.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: Now people want you know the letters after their name I'm OCD, I'm BPD, I'm, you know, depressed, I'm anxious, I have schizophrenia as a badge of honor instead of you know the same way, and so how do we balance that?
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: And I think some of that is the social media and the networking, but we do talk about it.
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: You know, I have children who are teenagers, and so we spend a lot of time talking about it today, and they've both struggled with mental health issues and you know getting access and what's that like and being able to talk about it and talk about it openly and in all settings, and figuring out how do we continue to talk about it in a way that's productive and not stereotyping.
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: And I think we've done a good job in some spaces around.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Talking about prevention and resiliency and coping is something that is generational and that we're still working through.
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: And how is that different from being anxious or depressed?
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: When does substance use, getting into that misuse and really being able to identify what's healthy versus unhealthy those are still places that we're struggling, I think, in our society and as we've normalized marijuana use, what does that mean?
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: You know to our, you know to these generations whether you're in, you know an older person who remembers you know the 60s and marijuana use and what's it like today, which is very different from what's available, versus a teen who may be thinking about vaping, or you know CBD or gummies, or what does that look like?
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: So we still we've spanned and we've grown in the way we think about it and talk about it.
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: And so now it's how do we help people make healthy decisions and understand their own risk factors?
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: And I think that's a piece we still have more science to uncover, which is how do we know who's going to be a person that's likely to experience a depressive episode or super serious anxiety or be more likely to have a substance use condition and be educated about yourself and your family history because it does matter.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: And then we have to let science continue to evolve so that we really know how do we provide better interventions and more timely and more quickly get to the right medications.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: I have a standing offer and I don't say this to be funny or flip, but I'm still waiting on somebody to come into a conference room and go, instead of saying, hey guys, I'm sorry I'm late, johnny broke his arm and we had to go to the ER Because that's how people would say that.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Right, they would just say it just like that.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: But I'm still waiting on my first experience where somebody just says hey guys, sorry, I'm late, but Johnny was late to his therapist appointment.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: We were late to his therapist appointment this morning.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: And to say it just like that, just like he broke his arm, and the offer is as soon as that comes, I will take that person out to whatever lunch, whatever they want and again.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: that's not to be flipped.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: I just say that I bring it up to say we need to get to that point.
• 27:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I found also in my experience, even with my children now.
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: I've battled my own mental illness since I was in my early twenties.
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: But even you know a lot of parents will seek it and want to fix or help their children right, not even realizing that they're struggling with the same struggles.
• 27:42
  Speaker 4: And so a lot of parents do end up getting treatment after finding treatment for their children, which is a whole, as you mentioned, teresa, a whole you know other ballgame.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: But we often want our children to be the best they can be, to feel better, to be better, and that kind of pushes the adults in their life to seek out treatment as well.
• 28:05
  Speaker 3: I think the other reason, scott, to your point, the reason we still haven't normalized that is because we still have a dark side to the way we think about mental health challenges and substance use, the image that many times too often comes to mind when I say a person with a serious mental illness is the homeless person or it's the violent person with a gun, and that's not the norm.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: But that is still the stigma and the stereotype that I think people don't want their family member or themselves to be judged about.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: Yet we see the stories of resiliency and hope every day.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: I think about the people that I've personally worked with over the years who were homeless.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: They had serious mental illness.
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: They spent time in prison for lots of different crimes, a lot of them property crimes, but now they've found recovery, they've got their life back, they're substance free, they're, they've worked through their mental health challenges and they're, you know, productive members of society.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: They're working, they're giving back and that's really the norm, not the exception.
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: And until we can get to that point and we stop continuing to catastrophize that mental illness is tied to violence or homelessness or all of the bad things that we think in society, that's still something that holds us back, and that's why these conversations around getting help and why it's valued, and having employers value mental health as part of, you know, of work, as part of living a healthy life, becomes so critically important.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: Because once we do that, then we are normalizing it.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: Like I offer you health insurance because if you break your arm, I want you to get it fixed so you can come back to work right.
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: If you have a heart attack, we want you to get the help that you need.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: If you have diabetes, yes, we want you to manage your diabetes.
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: We want you to be healthy.
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: Well, we need you to be physically healthy and mentally healthy, and that's still the work we have to do.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Those are all great points, Teresa.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about your experience.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: What led you to your path?
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: Mine is not as poignant as Ashley's, I would say.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: Growing up I was just always the person who was the natural helper.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: You know, in my family we were my family.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: We believed in giving back.
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: We believed in helping people.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: If there was somebody who needed a meal, we invited them in.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: If there was somebody who needed a place to stay, we invited them in.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: In school I was the kid that people came to when they needed help.
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: They wanted to solve a problem.
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: So naturally, when I was looking for a career I was like I want to be in the helping profession.
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: That led me to the college I went to, to a degree in psychology and then eventually because I needed to get a license to do the things and that's a whole other conversation for another day I ended up in the social work program, but I worked in kids residential with adolescent girls that had mental health and substance use for my first job and it was one of the most rewarding experiences, both professionally and personally, of really understanding how people can be so resilient, when you're working with adolescents who have endured more in their 10, 12, 16 years than most people endure in a lifetime.
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: Yet there's such hope and they have the strength and the resiliency to work through that and to now have, you know, had the opportunity to run into a couple of them just in the course of life to see that they have overcome and they're, you know, they have families of their own now and they're doing this work and then working with adults with serious mental illness for many years and really helping them, you know, find their best life and just again seeing the hope that they have.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: And how many times we overlook the day-to-day joy because we're so focused on the challenges and so really being having those opportunities to see people rebound and get back to the goals that they have for their own lives and recognizing we all have those same shared human qualities they have for their own lives and recognizing we all have those same shared human qualities.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Ashley, you've shared, as Teresa said very poignantly, your personal story.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: I've got to believe that whether you're at Mary Haven or other places, people see you as the VP, as the corporate exec, but when you start sharing your personal story, then those walls come down right and then conversations start.
• 32:57
  Speaker 4: Certainly it's important as a leader in our company that we're having conversations with our people that show them that we are here for them.
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: As individuals, we care for them.
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: You know, at Crane Group, our values are respect, family and community, and you know family is your family owned, but also you know our employees are our family, our employees are, you know, our work product, and so it's super important for us to make sure that our employees know that they have support in their health journey, no matter what, matter what it may be.
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: And so you know we make sure that we look at that and take it up a notch right.
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: So, if normal health insurance is covering maybe two counseling visits per year which sounds absurd, you know we're notching that up to maybe it's 12, right Some health insurance plans, when you see a counselor outside of those two per year, they don't hit your deductible, and so we're making sure that the cost that those employees are incurring hits their deductible.
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: You know we also did a lot of things to, you know, remove barriers to care, as I mentioned earlier, and so partnering with specific mental health professionals and other wellness practitioners to ensure that our employees have the access to care, whether it be, hey, the wait time's really long.
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: Can I see someone sooner?
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: Or priority scheduling?
• 34:24
  Speaker 4: We're keeping the mornings open for your employees, really trying to make it as easy as possible for our employees to access the care that they need.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: Not to trivialize anything, because we know that with any issue, there are so many different challenges and many of the ones that we've already discussed today.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: However, we do like to ask if you had that magic wand, if you had one thing that you could change immediately about behavioral health in the state of Ohio.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Maybe specifically what?
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: would that be so magic wand questions are always challenging, right, because it's hard to identify just one thing.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: But I think for me I'd go a little bit kind of higher level, up to that 30,000 foot, and really focus on elevating the value and when I say value of mental health, I mean that in a couple of different ways.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: The first one really is that we value mental health as essential health and that brain health is treated exactly the same way as any other physical health condition.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: Because if we value that, then we start to deal with a lot of the things, you know, the things that Ashley was just describing the mere fact that when we're buying health insurance we have to dive into the nitty details in behavioral health that we would never do in cardiac care or, you know, stroke care or anything else.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: We would assume those things were taken care of.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: So really valuing that, but valuing it in the workplace, like Ashley's company has clearly taken steps to do that.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: So we value it in our workplace because it matters to being successful, both personally but economically, and both as our businesses being economically stable but our economy.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: And finally, we would value the behavioral health workforce that's doing this job for the life-saving and life-changing interventions they provide on a daily basis.
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: Too often I think they're thought of as doing God's work, which it is and it's important.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: But we need to elevate the value that what we do in behavioral health as a profession is life-saving work, the same way we think about doctors and nurses and hospitals or first responders.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: So value would be the magic wand that I would be my magic wand.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: Request Love that.
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: For me, I think it would be increasing access and availability to folks on the total continuum of care.
• 36:49
  Speaker 4: And what I mean by that is at Mary Haven we're really great at getting people in the door and we can treat them quickly detox, get them to in-person treatment, transition to outpatient.
• 37:03
  Speaker 4: We even have some, you know, homes that folks can live in during treatment not very many but a few, but it's the access to that continuum of care.
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: So we have a lot of spots in detox.
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: We have a lot of spots, you know, in that initial inpatient.
• 37:22
  Speaker 4: But once that month is up, where do they go?
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: And so, you know, we work with partners in the community, but there's not enough space for everyone.
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: Partners in the community, but there's not enough space for everyone.
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: And you know, the statistics tell us that when an individual goes right back into the environment they were in pre-treatment, relapses happen a lot of the time.
• 37:42
  Speaker 4: And so how do you help that individual?
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: Find a new place to live, find a new job, you know, remove themselves from the situations they were in.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: It's hard.
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: There's not a lot of affordable housing in central Ohio, and that that does exist maybe isn't reserved for substance use, people recovering from substance use.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: But you know, we found that folks that are coming into treatment for substance use disorder are really self-medicating and a lot of times it's a health, mental health issue, and so we've got to be able to have those resources in that full continuum of care.
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: You know, mary Haven does a great job.
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: We have the continuum of care, but that's only if people can get to us and so making sure we're focusing on that, you know, meeting people where they are which I think Mary Haven does a great job and just allowing people to have the resources they need to, you know, hope to heal and restore their lives.
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: It's great when you ask that magic wand question and that you have two experts like yourselves give different answers and yet they mesh right.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: Because if we bring more value to mental health, that's going to help the continuum of care and if we continue to talk about continuum of care, that's going to elevate the value.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: I love that and I like it when it's organic, like that Synergy, I know, I know All over there we go.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Love that.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: Thank you both for joining us.
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: Thank you.
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: It's been my pleasure.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: And we really appreciate all the insight and the personal stories that you shared with us, to our listeners as well.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: We thank you.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: When you listen to our episodes, you break stigmas, you break barriers and you care about mental health and saving lives.
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: This is Voices for Suicide Prevention, brought to you by the Ohio Suicide Prevention Foundation.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Thank you.