Blueprint Winter 2022

First aid for the mind
Blue & You Foundation grant targets mental health in southeast Arkansas
Five years ago, Mellie Bridewell,
president and CEO of the Arkansas
Rural Health Partnership (ARHP),
received what amounted to a cry
for help. Medical professionals
across the southeastern corner of
Arkansas recognized the need to
address mental health issues in
their communities and reached out
to Mellie and the ARHP.
“We started hearing in 2016 that
the hospitals wanted us to address
mental health issues,” said Mellie.
“So, we started moving in that
direction.”
With a shortage of mental health
professionals in that part of
the state, many people with
mental health needs were going
undiagnosed or waiting for long
periods for adequate treatment –
sometimes with catastrophic results.
“If you come into the emergency
room with chest pains, physicians
can hook you up to a machine and
diagnose you fairly quickly,” said
Amanda Kuttenkuler, ARHP’s Mental
Health Initiatives program director.
“But with mental health issues,
we don’t always know what to do.
Even physicians were asking for
resources.”
But, while increasing the number
of mental health professionals in
south Arkansas is the ideal solution
4 WINTER 2022
to the problem, it just wasn’t
realistic in the short term.
“We asked ourselves, what can we
do right now, without mental health
professionals in place?” said Mellie.
“What are some best practices that
we can implement right now?”
The answer: Mental Health First Aid.
“Mental health first aid was the
thing that was most affordable,”
said Mellie. “The thing that would
have an immediate impact.”
Mental health first aid trains people to
be first responders to mental health
issues. Training in mental health
first aid teaches people to identify,
understand and respond to signs of
mental illness and substance use
disorders. The training provides the
skills necessary to provide initial
support to someone who may
be developing a mental health or
substance use problem and help
connect them to the appropriate care.
To get the ball rolling, Mellie
applied for a $115,000 grant from
the Blue & You Foundation for a
Healthier Arkansas to launch youth
mental health first aid training
throughout southern Arkansas.
The grant was approved.
“The foundation had previously
funded a grant to promote
mental health first aid within
the organization requesting the
funding,” said Rebecca Pittillo,
executive director of the Blue & You
Foundation. “But this grant was
unique because ARHP was taking
the training to school districts
within the state and impacting many
communities quickly. We understood
the great need for mental health
awareness and were pleased to have
the opportunity to fund this effort.”
The ARHP began a series of training
sessions to equip teachers and
healthcare professionals in mental
health first aid. ARHP serves 18
school districts and 14 hospitals
in the southeastern corner of
Arkansas. In one year’s time – from
June 2020 through July 2021 –
they were able to train 537 people
in mental health first aid. And the
effort has already shown results.
“We have had some teachers tell
us they’ve had students in class
exhibiting troubling behavior. And,
because of this training, they were
able to recognize those students
were in crisis and were able to get
them help,” said Amanda. “Others
have been able to identify issues in
their classrooms and resolve them
before they escalated.”
According to the National Institute
of Mental Health, approximately
1 in 5 adults in the United States
lives with a mental illness.