LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Louisville is putting a focus on mental health care in 2023.
Recently, an improved directory featuring more than 300 mental health providers in Jefferson County launched online on MentalHealthLou.com, a community wellness hub.
Mental Health Lou was created a few years ago to help connect community members with mental health care providers across the area. The hope — especially now with the updated website — is to be a one-stop resource for people find the services they’re looking for.
“We have a plethora of resources in our community, but people don’t seem to know how to access them,” said Amanda Villaveces, director of Mental Health Lou and a licensed marriage and family therapist.
Between the COVID-19 pandemic and another year with triple-digit homicides in Louisville, local experts said they’ve seen increases in trauma, anxiety, depression and grief but also an increase in people willing to talk about it.
“I think one thing about the pandemic that in a way benefitted this conversation about mental health is that, suddenly, everybody was experiencing it,” Villaveses said “And so it became a lot easier to start talking about it.
“Many of the people I saw during that time who maybe became new clients during the pandemic, depression didn’t start at the pandemic. It started way before then, but they were now in a place where people were talking about mental health …”
According to Louisville Metro Public Health and Wellness (LMPHW), updating this database online is part of a larger project to expand mental health initiatives in the county.
Louisville’s health department said it secured around $400,000 dollars in federal funding that will go toward enhancing mental health resources and suicide prevention methods over the next two years.
Other local organizations are trying to reach community members seeking mental health resources as well. The Christopher 2X Game Changers organization created a program called Voices of Survivors in early 2021 to help bring together family members who have experienced trauma after losing a loved one to gun violence.
“They have the confidence to express their story to know that it doesn’t make them weak to cry about it. It makes them strong,” said Christie Welch, deputy director of Game Changers. “And their family members’ lives matter just as much as everyone else does living.”
Those with Mental Health Lou are hopeful that the improved directory can help clients find the right therapist for them. The site also allows visitors to search services based on zip code.
“The relationship between a client and therapist is essential for treatment,” Lauren Muir — a provider listed on the Mental Health Lou website and a certified clinical trauma specialist — said in a statement. “Utilizing a searchable database can assist clients with finding a provider that best fits their individual needs.”
Of the $400,000 for the health department, about half of the funds will help establish a Suicide Fatality Review Board. The committee will be made up of mental health professionals and representatives from different agencies and organizations in the area. According to the health department, the goal of the board will be to prevent suicides by evaluating the circumstances that lead to suicides as well as identifying risk factors and trends in suicidal deaths for future prevention and intervention efforts.
“The past few years have been hard for most, if not all of us,” said Ben Goldman, administrator of the Behavioral Health Equity team at LMPHW. “Working in this field and living through the pandemic, there were times I felt alone and hopeless. But we’re not alone, and we don’t need to be hopeless.”
LMPHW said money will also go to organizations to help host events focused on suicide prevention training and addressing issues that impact the mental health of underserved populations.
For a direct link to Mental Health Lou’s community wellness hub or to find a provider, click here.
Copyright 2023 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved.
Discussion about this post