On March 21, 2014, over 300 people participated in a Community Conversation about Mental Health and Alcohol & Drug Abuse.  Attendees shared stories, expressed their appreciation for services and programs and identified that more work needed to be done to address three major areas: Access, Education and Coordination. 

Of the 300 attendees, more than 50 volunteers accepted the challenge to help develop action plans that begin to address the three major areas and identified issues. Working with these dedicated individuals, United Way of Sheboygan County (UWSC) has developed plans to address some of the issues.

One in four adults experiences a mental illness in any given year and 20% of youth ages 13- 18 years will experience a severe mental disorder in a given year.  Those facing these challenges also struggle to gain entry to care systems, access care locally and struggle to find a provider.  Achieving mental wellness must be a priority for all of us, for our community.

Some of the issues UWSC plans to focus on include prevention, eligibility, and availability of mental health care.  Making it our priority to develop useful resources for those suffering from mental health disorders, we want to ensure that the referral system will provide tips on how to find a mental health provider, finding the right type of provider, what to expect and factors to consider in selecting a provider. Further, the plan includes working with local school districts to provide mental health access to children within their own school building- a program called PATH – Providing Access to Healing.

United Way’s PATH for Students is a school-based, mental health program designed to improve access to therapy services for those students experiencing barriers to care elsewhere in the community.  Based on priorities identified by over 300 people who attended the March 2014 Mental Health and Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Community Conversation, United Way is seeking to pilot the PATH program in two school districts beginning with the 2015-16 academic school year. The intent of the program is to improve access to mental health services. The program proposed by the United Way of Sheboygan County (United Way) is based on the PATH program which began as a pilot in the Fox Valley in 2008. 

To that end, United Way of Sheboygan County, the Sheboygan Area School District and Random Lake School District are issuing a Request for Information/Request for Proposal (RFI/RFP) to organizations interested in developing the School-Based Mental Health Access Project (Providing Access to Healing – PATH).

Applicant organizations must be a tax-exempt organization, certified by the State of Wisconsin as a qualified mental health and AODA agency or designated as a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) receiving grants under Section 330 of the Public Health Services Act and capable of billing third party payers for services.  Start-up funding of approximately $40,000 per year, for this two-year pilot, will be provided by the United Way of Sheboygan County.

An informational session will be held for all interested applicants on Wednesday, March 18, 2015 at 1:00 p.m. at the United Way of Sheboygan County, 2020 Erie Avenue in Sheboygan.  The RFI/RFP will be available on the United Way of Sheboygan County website www.uwofsc.org on March 18^th.

Those interested in attending the informational meeting are asked to RSVP to the United Way of Sheboygan County at 920.458.3425. The RFI/RFP proposals are due Monday, April 20, 2015 by 4:30 p.m. 

Contacts:
Sara O’Hara
sara@uwofsc.org
920.458.3425

Ann Wondergem
ann@uwofsc.org
920.458.3425