 Hello, and welcome to this episode of Fort Worth Forward. I'm Michael Crane, and I get to bring you great stories about great things happening in our great city of Fort Worth, Texas. I thought with all the things surrounding mental health these days, that we should do an episode just dedicated to that issue. So with all the organizations that are out there doing some amazing things, I've brought together Scott Casey with Ellie Mental Health Southwest Fort Worth, Dr. Susan Garnett, who's the Chief Executive Officer of MHMR of Tarrant County, and Hannah Stevens, who's with M2G Ventures and their Social Mental Health Initiative. Let's go. Now I'm joined by Scott Casey, who's owner of Ellie Mental Health Southwest Fort Worth. Welcome, Scott. Thanks, glad to be here. Yeah, glad to have you on. There's been a lot of focus over the last number of years on mental health, so I thought it was really important to put together a whole episode of Fort Worth Forward just talking about mental health. And you've recently opened up this Ellie Mental Health off Brian Irvin. So tell us a little bit about it, what it is and how it works. Great, thanks for the opportunity to get to share about what we're doing here. Ellie Mental Health is the first franchise mental health company in the country, and we opened about two months ago, and the whole purpose of what we're trying to do here is to reduce the stigma of mental health. Everybody needs mental health at some point in their lives due to various life challenges and issues. More often than people want to realize. Do we need to talk about that stigma? Yes. Absolutely. And the great thing what's going on in the country right now is everybody's more open to discussing mental health. And so we just want to make it easy and accessible. Come as you are, be real, and just seek to help earlier rather than later. So tell us a little bit about why this is different than just a typical mental health clinic. Like what makes it different how you practice here? Yeah, over the past few years, we've seen a lot of telehealth and mental health therapy, which is great. It did serve a purpose. But now that we're coming out of that, having that one-on-one face-to-face in an atmosphere that's cozy and comfortable and it feels like you're at home versus in a sterile medical office, that's kind of what we're trying to set us apart. We've got comforting colors and a relaxing atmosphere so that you can just feel free to open up and talk with your therapist. Yeah, and that's a big part of obviously your therapist. Tell us a little bit about the pool that you have here, how many, where they come from, what's their background, and I think they have specialties too, right? Yes, yes. So just opening up, I have a clinic director who is fantastic, Ashley Smith. She is EMDR trained, which is great for first responders and people that have had some pretty good trauma. That's EMDR, that's a specialty. Yes, eye and motion detection. Honestly, I don't recall exactly. She works with first responders, it sounds like, and other people that might have had, yeah, great. And then we have another therapist, Blessing Boa Maa, and she focuses a lot on children, so we do play therapy and she's really fantastic. And we just hired a brand new therapist who's kind of working part-time with this and she does adolescence and up and grief and some other things. That's great, the office overall, so you have five or six therapists and you're growing? Right now, we have the clinic director and two therapists, we'll eventually have 10, we have eight offices, we do have a group therapy room, which at some point we will offer group therapy for those that may need to talk about various things. Why, to you, is it important that we take the stigma away from asking for help, mental health services? Why is it important to you? That is a great question. I think if we don't treat mental health early, it gets more pervasive and it's harder to deal with later on. So removing the stigma, I think it allows people to just to come and get treatment earlier and sooner and maybe infrequently, maybe you need somebody to talk to for three months and then maybe in a couple of years, you will come back for another three months. So it doesn't have to be an ongoing thing, but just as you need it to get that treatment sooner rather than later. Yeah, I mean, I think we're seeing across the country and that's again why I wanted to focus this episode on mental health, that there is a lot of need and if people have some other outlet that they can go, there may not end in such tragic results we keep seeing across the country. Yes, absolutely. And even in our own backyard a couple of weeks ago. Yes, and that is the whole thing. And a lot of our focus is on youth, just simply because if we can treat earlier when they're before they become an adult, they're more productive for themselves and for our community as a whole. I'm sure you did your research when you were opening this, but how prevalent or lack thereof are mental health services in our area? So in Texas and even in Tarrant County, one in six adults suffers from mental health of some kind. And so there is a prevalence there. Texas overall though, as a state, has a pretty low prevalence compared to other states. The issue with that was access. And so that's a low access in Texas. Yes, yes. And so that's another reason why we wanted to open. There's actually other alleys that are opening around DFW. There's probably around 40 to 45 eventually. And across the Metroplex. So we want to again, increase that access to mental health throughout our community. And again, it's just the wait times that we're seeing whenever we met with some of the schools that are here. And that's one of the reasons why I'm excited about being here. They were so excited because the resources that they have and the places that they're going, the wait lists are four to six weeks. You know, we're currently obviously fully open and available to see people immediately. So they were very excited to have this resource here. Well, it's, I'm glad you point that out because you do sit in a great area which had been a focus, the Southwest Hospital District. But there isn't that much mental health care. There's tons of medical care around us. And you get your cross from a couple of schools. How does that, I mean, how does that play into a child's well-being, school well-being, et cetera, having great access to mental health care? Yes. You know, one, I just want to thank the counselors that are at all the schools. They do a fantastic job. But eventually they just need more than what they can do at the school. And so they need to refer kids out to additional support and therapy. You know, kids over from COVID and even today with bullying and social media and all the challenges that they have, you were just seeing a greater need in our kids and youth and adolescents to seek a little bit more help than what the counselors can provide at the schools. Yeah, yeah. Well, where can people find you, your website and address? We are at 6628 Bryant-Ervin, sweet 200. We're right across from Trinity Valley School, right in front of Miravista. So it's a great location. And then the main website is elementalhealth.com. And then you can search by location and our location name is Southwest Fort Worth. Okay, sounds great. Well, Scott, thanks for being here today. Thanks for chatting a little bit and thanks for all you're doing to make sure people are well cared for. Thank you for this opportunity. Appreciate it. Thank you. And now I'm with Susan Garnett, who's CEO of MHMR of Tarrant County. Welcome. Thank you. Thanks for being here. This episode is all about mental health. Really think it's important today's day and age of talking about it, reducing the stigma and you've been doing this work for a long period of time. How long have you been CEO and involved with MHMR? I've actually worked here about 28 years and I've been CEO about 12 years. And we're very happy to be here today. And I agree with you. The issues of mental health are so important today. We know they come up a lot. And they're different than issues that we might have talked about years ago. So it's good to have the conversation. That's great. What are some of those differences we talk about today versus what would have been when you first started in the career? So I would say that we all know that there was a lot of stigma about mental health and a lot of reluctance to recognize that being mentally healthy is part of being overall healthy. We connect the mind and the body in a way that we wouldn't have years ago. I always say that in my mother's generation, my parents' generation, no one would have talked about mental health. When I grew up, people would have been reluctant to reveal if they were struggling with something. My kids are conversant with mental health condition. My grandchildren can even name different disorders. People are just more agreeable toward reaching out to help for help from others. And that's a good thing. And we also, all of us are a little more inclined to say, oh, maybe there's something I can do about that, and supposed to turning our head and not paying attention to it. That's a good thing. Yeah, I would put it in a different, I think we all have that crazy uncle and then we wouldn't really talk about it, but they would do things at family reunions. Now I think it's okay to say, but maybe they need some help. Maybe we need to offer them. Tell our viewers what MHMR does. Sure, we are an organization that works closely with state and other local and federal government to provide services to people in local communities, to provide community-based services. So we provide mental health services to children, adolescents, adults. Most of our population of adults, for example, is uninsured, about 65% of our patients are uninsured. And we are fortunate that we have the state funding to help us serve those folks. And mental health services for us is more than just about seeing a doctor or getting a prescription filled. It's also about help with housing, help with employment, help with other- Okay, wrap around services. That's right, wrap around services. Other rehabilitative services that help people get connected in the community, help people lead healthy lives. We also serve people and families of people with intellectual disabilities, disorders like mental retardation, autism, other kinds of conditions like Down syndrome and cerebral palsy. We also are the organization that serves babies under the age of three for interventions when they have developmental delays and pediatricians refer to us to help families get the right start for their children so that they're ready for school when school rolls around. And then we provide services for special populations like people who are homeless or people who are in the Tarrant County Jail and then continue to connect them with services afterwards. And just a variety of special populations, people with substance use disorders we have services for, we're actually the second largest community center of our type in the state of Texas. Wow, wow, I had no idea all those services were underneath y'all. You hit on this a little bit, but specifically for children, what are the services that you offer around children? So we offer services for children throughout their life when children are under the age of three before their third birthday, they're actually entitled to services if they have developmental delays. And that could be a child who is slow in speech, slow in walking or other mobility skills, maybe a child who was born with a diagnosable condition. And we have occupational therapists, physical therapists, speech therapists, a variety of other professionals to assist them. But we also have services for children and work closely with schools to provide services either in schools or in families homes to reach out to children and their families and help make sure that they get what they need. Sometimes that's medication, sometimes it's counseling, sometimes it's other kinds of family supports and linkages in the community, all dedicated toward helping children grow up, graduate from our services and be ready to participate in adulthood. And are those referrals through the schools or how do they get to you to know that you have those services in the nation? So families can reach out to us through our website. You'll see the phone number on our website. We can provide you with the phone number that you can see here through the show. So families can reach out directly or schools and doctors make referrals to us. But we have a 24-7 hotline that operates, a crisis line it's called, so that somebody can reach a highly qualified clinician who can do a screening and can help them sort through if they're having an emergency and that's for all people, children and adults. But whether or not they're having an emergency, if they need law enforcement kinds of resources, medical resources or if they need our resources deployed out to the site. We also answer the phone for 988, you may have heard about 988, which is a universal kind of approach to reaching people who are really struggling. And so we answer those. So instead of calling 911, they should call 988. They should call 988. That's right. And we'll connect people to the right resources for their mental health disorders. That's great. And that's 98, suicide prevention, everything else. That's exactly right. You used to see a 10-digit number for suicide prevention lifeline and Congress several years ago decided to go to a three-digit number to make it easier to reach. So we're the entity and we have a 78-county area that we answer calls for. You answer calls, that's amazing. You have been, I think you said 27 years? 28 years. 28 years CEO. Congratulations. Thank you. What have been the most significant changes you've seen over the course of your career? So I think the lowering of stigma is certainly one of those things. I think another thing is the rise of the use of technology. So things like telehealth. We, like many other kinds of organizations, struggle around workforce issues today. So we have to really think, if we look to the future in our country about medical professionals, we have to really think about how we're gonna make the best use of those medical professionals. And so today we have strategies, telehealth strategies, that really allow us to meet people where they are. We sometimes have police officers in the field who are connected to our staff and our clinicians via an iPad. That's a good thing. Somebody who might not be able to come in because they don't have transportation in our county, we can see virtually. So this rise of virtual services has really been a huge, huge help for the people that we serve. Allows you to meet people where they are. That's right. So everybody does, can't and doesn't want to come in eight to five Monday through Friday, right? So we need to meet people at other times and other places. And sometimes we meet people when they're in really struggling points in their lives, we work closely with police departments and we have wonderful police departments here who have been very open to and enthusiastic about finding the right mental health resources for people. And that's a good thing. We're very fortunate to be here. And for ourselves even too, the reducing the stigma, we've done a lot at the city council saying, it's okay, even you need to ask for help sometimes too. That's right, that's right. Our officers face really difficult circumstances and we want them supported. For sure, for sure. I think that makes it better for the system overall if you have an actor. What are some underutilized services that y'all have that you want people to know about that maybe they're just not using or know about very much? So I would say what we hope that people know is that there is someplace to go when you have a moment of need, a crisis in your own life or your family member's life. We want you to know there is someplace and it won't take very many Google searches to find us. And somebody somewhere probably knows about us, likely somebody who's already in your circle. Certainly for children, we know that families struggle and we know that the pandemic over the last three years has created even more struggles for families. One of the programs that we really are very pleased with is a national model we brought to Tarrant County called Help Me Grow that supports families of children birth to six in getting the right resources for them. And this doesn't require any diagnosis. This means you're struggling to find a childcare center. You're struggling to find some summer resources. You're struggling to figure out, does my kid have additional needs or not have additional needs? And you're just not sure. You can reach out to us. We have a website is connected to our mhmrtc.org website and you can call a phone number and reach a navigator who can assist you via the phone. If you need more help, we can connect you to face-to-face services too. But we think this navigation, the world is complicated. People don't have time to sort it all through and having somebody who can help you make your way through the complications of all of these systems is really important. We also work really closely with local partners. There's maybe not everybody can find every distinctive service that they would like to have, but there's a lot of services out there and oftentimes it's just about getting connected to them, but we have great nonprofit providers here in Tarrant County. So it's called Help Me Grow. Help Me Grow. And there's a navigator that you can call and they will help whatever your problem is or issue or what you just don't understand, navigate through the system and get the services that you need. And it's a national model and so we're really pleased that we have it. We also have an expansion of that model for kids six to 18 called Help Me Thrive. And again, helping families as they're sorting through school and just things that they're worried about with their kids, we can help them figure that out. That's amazing. Thank you so much, Dr. Garnett for being here. Appreciate all that you're doing and appreciate you just making sure that those, the things that we need that people need are out there and that they can get connected in some way. Really appreciate it. Thanks for being here today. Thank you. Thank you. And now I'm here with Hannah Stevens, who's Director of Social Impact with M2G Ventures. Welcome. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being here. And happy Mental Health Awareness Month. It is Mental Health Awareness Month and that's why I wanted to focus this whole episode just on mental health. And we've had some great guests already. I'm glad you're here today too. And there's a kind of a personal connection with M2G Ventures and Mental Health and the Mental Health Initiative. You wanna talk a little bit about that and why this is so important to M2G Ventures? Absolutely. So M2G Ventures was founded by sisters, Jessica Miller-Essel, Susan Miller-Groupi. Great women, friends, everything. Yes. And they are twins. So you obviously can distinguish them. It took me... Sometimes. Took me a little while. But they had a very personal experience. They lost a loved one to bipolar disorder in 2017. And so after that experience, they thought we've got to do something in the mental health, mental illness space. Because based on their experience, they didn't want that to be the outcome for everybody else who experiences it. So they started... It was our social impact project. And now we're a non-profit. As of last year, we got official status. Right. And so it's just focused on addressing the conversation, advocacy awareness. And our biggest focus right now is our partnership with UT Southwestern. So we partnered with their Center for Depression Research and Clinical Care. It is a mouthful. Yeah, it is a mouthful. What was that partnership do? How does that... So we have pledged to raise a million dollars to bring a center to Tarrant County. So they've had a presence in Dallas for a long time, but there was also just this need in Tarrant County. So people don't have to drive all the way over to Dallas. You can get that help, those resources. And it's depression. Yes, predominantly, exactly. The center focuses on the treatment of mood disorders, predominantly bipolar disorder and depression. So the founding director is Dr. Maducar Trivedi. He's brilliant in his field. So he is the founding director of the center. And so he's the one who's implementing these programs, these studies, and the majority of our, I would say our fundraising efforts fund his studies. Okay. Can you tell us a little bit about what bipolar disorder is if it's... Yes, so it's classified as a mental illness, a mood disorder, which is something that affects a person's thinking, feeling, behaviors. Depression is kind of hard to describe because it's different for everybody. It's also one of the leading causes of suicide. So his research is focused predominantly on depression, but there's also, there's so many forms of depression, and you may have two people who have depression, but it could be so different. So their work is focused on what causes depression because it's kind of an unknown. I mean, the brain is such a complex and mysterious thing. So they're just trying to do whatever they can to identify those biomarkers. What makes a person susceptible to depression or another mental illness, and then finding the right treatment for them because it's not a one-size-fits-all approach. Right, and I think if you look at it, again, depression can look different ways for different people. Maybe they don't eat, maybe they don't show up to meetings, maybe they, but then the opposite of that is the bipolar part where they go through really high highs and then really low lows and they're not, and that treating that as what, figuring out what causes, it's someone to get so high they get so low. Right, it's part of bipolar disorder. Yeah, and Dr. Trivedi tries to provide us regular people who don't have his brain in his background. And ways that- I'm saying that's nobody's regular, just so you know. Well, that's a good point. We all have our baggage or something, right? Everybody has something, right? It's very true. Yes, yes. But he describes depression or bipolar disorder, a mental illness, it's kind of an umbrella, right? And it's like comparing, saying somebody has cancer, well, there are very specific types of cancer, and that's kind of how it works with mental illness. So we often just refer to it as mental illness or depression, bipolar disorder, but there's so much underneath. So much underneath. What is art of the mind, which I think is a big part of what you'll do. Yes, so that is our annual fall fundraising gala. So we call it the intersection of art and science. So on, from, you know, M2G Ventures, we're a commercial real estate firm. So we integrate a lot of art into our properties. So our co-founders- Beautiful properties. Yes, yes. We've always been inspired by art, and we translate that into our event because, you know, art is, art's powerful. Sure. You know, when you don't have the words to describe something, that's art. That's right. So what we do is we, the evening is used as a discussion. It's used as an opportunity to let people know what's going on in Tarrant County, what the CDRC's up to. Okay. There are a lot of testimonial from research participants, but also it's art of the minus centered around our life art auction. So we commission artwork from local, regional, national artists to produce a piece of work that's rooted in their understanding of mental health and mental illness. And so then we auction off the art at the event, and then those proceeds benefit, we directly benefit UT Southwestern CDRC. That's wonderful. So where can people find you? Website at site. And tell a little bit about what services you have that maybe people don't know about. Yes. So you can find us. Of course we have our, you know, mtgventures.com. That's all encompassing of our commercial realistic ventures, but we do have mtgmhi.org. Okay. And that gives people information on our nonprofit because it's unique. I mean, where Jessica and Susan have started a commercial real estate firm, right? And that's their industry, right? And so when people sometimes they're not, it's maybe it's unusual that there's also a nonprofit side of things. So that's where people can get information on our story. They can get much better information that from Dr. Trivedi, you know, we have some video testimonial. We have our kind of our overview of where we are in our fundraising. Okay. And then we try to, we try to just advocate and be the voice. We let Dr. Trivedi be the brain who focuses on the brain research. And our goal is to get people involved in the conversation. Okay. Because there's so much stigma around this topic. You know, I think there's also this misunderstanding, you know, people who maybe have not been personally affected by a mental illness. They think it's all in somebody's head. Right. But it's not that simple, you know. This is an actual, these are brain diseases. Right. So we're just trying to be that mouthpiece for Dr. Trivedi. So we're like the cheerleaders. Right. And getting people involved from the industry that we're in, from the community, you know, people like yourself who have been very supportive and passionate about what we're doing. And that's what we're doing. We're just trying to bring people together to talk about something that affects everybody. Everybody. Well, Hannah, thanks for being here today. Thanks for what you're doing. Really appreciate it. Best to Susan and Jessica too. I know that they are wonderful people. They are. Starting this initiative and this whole idea that we need to bring this out of the darkness, have these conversations, make it better for people that are struggling. Yeah, and thank you for what you do and for giving us the platform. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for being here today. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Fort Worth Forward. There's no doubt in my mind that we have a mental health crisis happening right now here in our own community. I'm glad we're talking about these issues. I'm glad we're reducing the stigma about talking about these issues because there is help available. There are couches just like these all over the Metroplex. So if you or someone you know is having a mental health episode or issue, reach out, dial 988, let them know about what's happening and get the help that you need. We're here to help you and I really appreciate you tuning in to this episode. Thank you.