Mental Health

Emergency Response to COVID Must Include Behavioral Health

Posted on May 6, 2020September 23, 2020 by Katharine Berg

What happens when Californians living with mental illness and substance use disorders (SUDs) are unable to receive the care they need? Historically, many end up in jails and Emergency Departments or living on the street. Before COVID-19, this was an inadequate solution, one that community safety net providers worked hard to remedy. Now, the need for mental health and SUD services takes on new urgency. Our Emergency Departments are stretched to the limit. Behavioral healthcare providers statewide are doing everything we can to serve people with urgent mental health and SUD needs in community settings, and out of hospitals. But, just when our communities need us most, we may be at risk of collapse.

Behavioral health organizations are facing a true perfect storm. We continue to provide essential services, including in-person contact with clients in crisis. According to a survey conducted by the California Council of Community Behavioral Health Agencies (CBHA), 89 percent of member agencies lack the necessary personal protective equipment, including masks, hand sanitizer and gloves. Meanwhile, our agencies are hemorrhaging financially. Many organizations are serving fewer clients, even with telehealth options, as people are isolated and afraid to reach out for help. Several organizations have been forced to furlough and cut staff, and the crisis promises to continue to negatively impact our agencies and our clients.

Nevertheless, our professionals continue to work despite fear and uncertainties. Outreach to individuals experiencing homelessness continues. Transporting people into shelters continues. Residential mental health and SUD treatment facilities and halfway houses continue to operate. Suicide prevention hotlines continue to operate as the number of urgent calls steadily increases.

Make no mistake – the need for mental health and SUD services has not declined. On the contrary, symptoms of anxiety, depression and isolation are sweeping the nation. And, very soon, frontline healthcare workers will begin presenting signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.

A second wave of this crisis is taking shape, a mental health crisis that will begin to peak just as new infection numbers start to decline. As the leaders of three of California’s largest behavioral healthcare providers serving some of our state’s most vulnerable individuals, we are worried that we may not be able to help when our state needs us most.

Our organizations continue to reverse overdoses that would otherwise likely have been fatal. We have kept people out of overtaxed Emergency Departments and jails. We have kept people from dying. But, we cannot survive like this. We need help and we need it right away.

That is why we have joined with the National Council for Behavioral Health to advocate for a $38.5 billion infusion of federal emergency funds for behavioral health organizations to avert a large-scale public health calamity. As part of the next stimulus bill, this funding would immediately stabilize the system and ensure that providers like us can provide services to the hundreds of thousands of individuals in California that depend on us.

The value of such an investment goes far beyond the immediate need. Just as frontline healthcare workers have been there when our communities needed the most, we want to be sure behavioral healthcare professionals are able to help. This will not be possible without immediate, emergency funding.

We are grateful to Speaker Pelosi for her work to get bipartisan agreement for the previous stimulus package, and hope that she will be able to secure similar support for behavioral health providers in the next package.

All too often, people living with mental illness and SUDs are forgotten, overlooked or cast out of sight. Now more than ever, we must care for them. Only then can we ensure the health and well-being of all Californians.

Brett Andrews is CEO of PRC, Vitka Eisen is President and CEO of HealthRIGHT 360 and Al Gilbert is President and CEO of Felton Institute

Learn more about the National Council for Behavioral Health.

Computer Learning Center Expands Opportunity

Posted on January 16, 2020September 23, 2020 by Katharine Berg

Inside PRC’s buzzing 24-station Computer Learning Center, more than 100 people like Marilyn, Kim, and Sam are building digital literacy and skills to grow their income and workforce engagement.

“I’m so excited to move forward and into the workforce again.”

Outdated skills and gaps in employment can be hard to face, so PRC Workforce Development offers skill and community building opportunities that get people trained-up, confident, and back on their feet. Two accredited programs—Next Step Computer Training and Step Up Administrative Training—provide 64 combined hours of digital literacy and office skills readying people with mental and physical health disabilities for competitive internships and employment opportunities. Last year, PRC ran 20 cycles graduating 106 trainees!

“I have a better grasp on how this [technology] works…finally.”

The results speak for themselves. In 2019, employed graduates saw their annual incomes increase 337%.

People with disabilities experience three times the unemployment rate of the general population. But PRC is getting people into the workforce at more than double the statewide rate. When PRC opened the Integrated Service Center’s doors in April 2019, our computer lab’s capacity more than doubled, and the Workforce Development team began to ramp up classes, programs, and skill building opportunities. In less than one year, with the same high quality, high impact instruction, enrollment is up 30%.

“I can’t place a value on this experience. It was motivational, personally uplifting, and I learned so much in such a short time.”

PRC also launched LIFT UP SF – Lifting Up Peers for a Brighter Tomorrow – a 64-hour curriculum putting real life experience with mental health and substance use services to work for graduates as peer professionals across public health and social service fields. The first cohort just entered paid traineeships, the final step in advance of competitive employment placements at PRC and partner health agencies across San Francisco. The second cohort is double in size, with 15 students gaining competencies to put their lived experience to work advancing community health.

For graduates like Phil (not pictured), opportunities like Next Step, Step Up, and LIFT UP SF are transformational. A longtime PRC client, Phil has overcome drug addiction and homelessness. Fifteen years ago, when he was newly diagnosed with HIV, Phil accessed PRC’s legal services to secure disability benefits. Most recently he’s moving forward with PRC workforce development. “I feel really good right now in my recovery; I’m mentally stable and poised to be able to go off of disability [benefits] and back into the workforce…But the highlight of [LIFT UP SF] is the overall realization that my life experience is worth something. I can connect with that person going down a certain path…help people who are drug addicted, homeless, and in health crisis to get from that place—from where I was stuck—to where I am now.”

“My objective is to find a place where I’m happy and a place to grow”

On top of skills-based training and practice in the lab, clients work with PRC specialists to accessed tailored supports in resume and cover letter writing, skills inventories, vocational assessments, interview preparation, and post-placement counseling. PRC partners with some of the largest employers in San Francisco including the University of California at San Francisco, the City and County of San Francisco, the State of California, Apple, Genentech, Target, H+R Block, Starbucks, Blue Apron, Hyatt, Genentech, Uber, Alaska Airlines, Salesforce, Apple, Old Navy, and Whole Foods. The average wage of clients placed in employment was $20.66 per hour in 2018, 38% higher than the local minimum wage.

Congratulations to all our participants and graduates! We’re proud to stand with you, moving forward.

Learn more about PRC’s Workforce Development trainings and services here or reach out about hiring partnerships and putting graduates to work for you.

When Personal Networks Aren’t Enough

Posted on October 3, 2019September 23, 2020 by Katharine Berg

When she was referred to PRC’s Co-op Supported Living Program by a city clinic, Kathy—a 53-year-old Korean-American woman who moved to the US when she was two—was living with and working as her ailing mother’s caregiver. Kathy had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in her late 20’s following methamphetamine use during graduate school. Since then, she’s battled with delusions and paranoia, had bouts of homelessness, and utilized crisis services in San Francisco from 2014 to 2019.

Now, knowing her mother only had months to live, Kathy had been informed she would become homeless once her mother died. The apartment she was living in was provided for her mother. Kathy was an only child with no familial support, and this news ushered in a critical time for Kathy’s continued health and stability.

PRC’s co-op apartments are designed to provide a transitional, supportive environment for people at a short remove from vulnerability, where supportive resources, a little time, and confidence-building practice will equip them to effectively manage their health conditions into the future and take the next steps into health and independence successfully.

Inside PRC’s co-op program, Kathy attended support groups, house meetings, and weekly individual rehab sessions as well as an external skill-building group. She continued to nurse her mother until her mother’s death, and Kathy utilized her new-found supportive community to grieve without utilizing crisis services.

Kathy’s focus and hard work continued to pay off when she was able to apply for and successfully achieve a federal housing voucher in Colorado. After five months in PRC’s co-op, with the help of her case manager and PRC’s community partners Kathy moved out and across the country into her new 2-bedroom apartment.

Given the Bay Area’s high costs of living and dearth of affordable housing options it’s true that taking the next step into independent living and self-driven follow up care is increasingly difficult for co-op residents. Leaving San Francisco can mean leaving one’s support network behind. Housing resources that keep people healthfully in community, like each of PRC’s 111 existing co-op beds, are critical.

Kathy demonstrated insight, resiliency, and self-advocacy that only continued to grow as she received support and stability from all her San Francisco providers. She is a testament to the power of community, partnership, and opportunity, and we, at PRC, are grateful to have been a part of that strength.

Many of us—all of us, I dare say—are touched by struggles with mental health, substance use, or HIV/AIDS whether it’s in our own lives or those of friends and loved ones. But we don’t all have access to supportive resources, money, family, or community networks when they are needed. For those individuals across San Francisco, PRC is that bridge, a lifeline, and the critical link into community.

—CEO Brett Andrews

Support PRC

Return to reading PRC’s Fall 2019 Frontline

Lift UP SF: A win-win-win for San Francisco

Posted on October 2, 2019September 23, 2020 by Katharine Berg

We’re proud to introduce a new pathway to personal and economic growth for the thousands of people overcoming mental health, HIV or substance use challenges each year in San Francisco. One of five California programs selected, the Office of Statewide Health Planning will invest nearly $500,000 over two years in PRC’s award winning workforce development model. The result? We’re scaling up a peer-to-peer occupational training pathway recently launched in partnership with San Francisco’s Department of Public Health. Lifting Up Peers for a Brighter Tomorrow or Lift UP SF is a win for consumers, a win for behavioral health services providers, and a win for San Francisco.

Lift UP SF readies consumers—people in and exiting mental health and substance use treatment programs, family members, and caregivers—to put their lived experience to use on a competitive career path. It spans a 64-hour comprehensive training curriculum designed by advocates and consumers, individualized placement support, and peer group services to prepare graduates for volunteer, part-time, and full-time peer positions in the most common health settings: Social and Human Service Assistants, Case Workers, Case Managers, Client Advocates, Family Self-Sufficiency Specialists, and Independent Living Specialists among others.

Leveraging the experience of people with lived experience in mental health, substance use, and public health systems doesn’t just make sense, it’s proven to result in better outcomes for consumers on both sides of the interaction.

Beyond professional skill delivery, peer specialists in health settings share the same vocabulary as those they help, have credibility, and embody an accessible vision of success. Paid or volunteer employment is also a key component of recovery from mental health and substance use disorders, particularly methamphetamine addiction. The act of going to training, getting placed in employment, and accessing a supportive community support throughout this process dramatically improves an individual’s ability to maintain their recovery.

This pathway is timely, right here and right now. San Francisco has very low unemployment (1.9%) overall, but prosperity and stability are not shared equitably across our community. A high cost of living, driven primarily by housing expenses, strains many long-time residents and the populations PRC serves. African Americans and other communities of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, people with behavioral health disorders, and people living with HIV are overrepresented among the unemployed and have lower than average salaries, placing them at high risk for displacement and homelessness. People with lower incomes also have higher rates of mental health disorders.

It’s a circular argument Lift UP SF seeks to disrupt.

The training program specifically reaches into these under-employed consumer groups to provide more than a living wage. An increasing economic outlook seeds hope, and a career trajectory positions consumers—people like those exiting PRC’s 30/60/90 day treatment programs or in our co-op living around the city—to progress through the continuum of care and transition successfully to independent living.

As a result, not only do we expect to decrease unemployment among Bay Area residents impacted by mental illness, substance use disorder, and/or HIV/AIDS and to expedite treatment program exits making room for more people to access needed treatment services, Lift UP SF will develop a diverse, representative pool of qualified, culturally competent staff to help alleviate the worker shortage in behavioral health settings across San Francisco and beyond. PRC’s program launches with more than 17 partners—from Castro Country Club and the City of San Francisco Community Behavioral Health Services to Native American Health Center, Mission Neighborhood Health Center, and Alameda and Contra Costa County Behavioral Health Programs—already signed on and seeking to fill already identified peer staffing shortages across public mental health services.

Want to know more? Contact our Workforce Development team.

Want to contribute to support innovate solutions, like Lift UP SF? Donate here.

Keep Reading the Fall 2019 Frontline

Moving People Forward: 2019 Impact Report

Posted on August 10, 2019September 23, 2020 by Katharine Berg

Dear Friend,

It’s been a tremendous year at PRC, and I’m pleased to share PRC’s 2019 Impact Report with you today.

As you’ll learn, PRC’s staff, volunteers, and clients have been hard at work transforming lives and the systems San Francisco has in place to support vulnerable adults. We opened PRC’s new Integrated Service Center in April 2019 to improve the way people affected by mental health issues, substance use, and HIV/AIDS access crisis intervention, stabilizing services, and longer term supports when they’re needed. In 2018, we helped 5,419 adults.

At PRC we’re addressing the nexus of poverty, stigma, discrimination, and isolation head-on to prevent hopelessness and connect people—like John on page 5 or Liliana on page 7—with new and better paths out of poverty and addiction, illness and stigma, homelessness and decline.

Honesty and innovation are key to moving past the status quo. In San Francisco, as across the nation, we are all challenged to reflect on a rising population of homeless adults and redress inequities in health and resource distribution. You and I may have a support network, a safety net, a couch, or access to money for treatment services or prescription medication when it’s needed. For those among us who do not, whether it’s a brief moment of free fall or a life-long health issue to manage and best, PRC is here: a bridge to hope, to health, and to wellness.

I invite you to read on, be inspired, bring your questions, and share with a friend.

In community,

Brett Andrews

Chief Executive Officer

Latinx LGBTQ+ Mental Health

Posted on March 16, 2018September 23, 2020 by [email protected]

Each Mind Matters¹(EMM) recently collaborated with a group of LGBTQ+ community leaders and stakeholders to come together and create informational materials on mental health issues faced by Latinx LGBTQ+. The materials focus on three key segments: young adults, older adults, and providers working with Latinx youth.

Latinx LGBTQ+ Youth Mental Health Provider Fact Sheet²

This fact sheet helps providers working with Latinx LGBTQ+ youth address the complex connections that can have an impact on a young person’s life, such as sexual orientation, gender identity, race/ethnicity, and immigration status. The fact sheet provides relevant resources and best practices within a culturally responsive framework.

EMM also created a fully bilingual in Spanish and English resource online, which covers key terms for providers working with Latinx LGBTQ+ youth, things to consider as mental health professionals serving Latinx LGBTQ+ immigrant youth, and seeking benefits. At this time there are no printed copies available; however, the pamphlet is available free to download³.

EMM website is a resource for mental health and LGBTQ+ topics:

Latinx LGBTQ+ Youth Handbook⁴
Be True and Be You: A Basic Mental Health Guide for LGBTQ+ Youth⁵ Discusses caring for mental health as an LGBTQ+ young adult including topics such as sexual orientation, gender identity, coming out, healthy relationships, common mental health challenges, and symptoms.
LGBT Mental Health and Aging Support Guide⁶ Provides information on mental health for older LGBTQ+ adults on topics such as considerations around caregiving, legal affairs, rejection, and discrimination.