Imagine for a moment a future in which mental health professionals primarily focus on emotional health and wellness and partner with communities to support emotional health. A substantial amount of their time and efforts would be spent defining the parameters of wellness, emotional and behavioral health; identifying resiliency characteristics of people associated with healthy outcomes, and understanding the process of the underlying issues. Resiliency research suggests that, in effect, the focus would shift from unwanted developmental outcomes that go for years without being addressed (fail first) toward defining, identifying, and enhancing wanted outcomes (help first). We believe that we are in a position to leverage this future into existence.
Inspired by the BHRS mission statement, “In partnership with our community, our mission is to provide and manage effective prevention and behavioral health services that promote the community’s capacity to achieve wellness, resilience, and recovery outcomes” and an approved MHSA PEI Plan based on this mission statement, BHRS has set out to create, with our community, a different approach to behavioral health and emotional wellness in Stanislaus County. To be successful, we will need to permanently shift away from the traditional approach to communities based on what’s “wrong” or “at-risk”. We believe we can take substantive steps towards building a “help first” system where the mental health professionals are “primarily focused on mental health and wellness” and there is genuine partnership with communities.
