“Business!” cried the Ghost of Jacob Marley to Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!” Marley also lamented that “at this time of year, I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise them?”

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Marley's warning to Scrooge reminds us of the places in our own lives or businesses where we can help others. What follows is a story about how Farm Bureau Insurance found a way to help provide compassionate care to the most vulnerable people in our community.

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“We had one client, an elderly woman,” says Matt Hardin, Executive Director of the Southeast Idaho Behavioral Crisis Center, “who had been evicted from her apartment. She was schizophrenic and had been off her medication. She was going through a psychotic state and had pulled out all the sockets in her apartment. This is not uncommon behavior for someone like her who is hearing voices.”

 

THE COMMON WELFARE

Prior to April 15 of this year, there were few mental health options in the Pocatello-area for someone in a situation like this. “A crisis center was the piece that was missing,” Hardin says. “For people like her, there were only two options. You can call the police and they can put you in jail for a couple of days, or, if the person agrees to it, they can go to the hospital. But there’s not much the hospital can do in these cases. We've needed something like the Crisis Center in this area for a long time.”

 

CHARITY & FORBEARANCE

Farm Bureau Insurance played an outsized role in making a local crisis center a reality. Last December, the company sold its former state headquarters building in Pocatello to the Portneuf Health Trust at a fraction of the property’s appraised value. The donation, valued at $3.5 million, was the largest the Trust had ever received. The Trust used the building, located at 1001 North 7th Avenue, to house the Southeast Idaho Behavioral Crisis Center, the first of its kind in the region.

 

Fifteen minutes before the clinic officially opened on April 15 of this year, they had a client waiting at the door. During its first three months of operation, the Crisis Center – which charges no fees for its services – saw 181 individuals pass through their doors who stayed for a collective 571 days. Within seven months, the center had treated 1,400 individual crisis episodes.

 

BENEVOLENCE

Part of the center’s mission, Hardin says, was to reduce the strain on medical and law enforcement personnel and facilities. “Law enforcement officers have also been amazing social workers for a very long time,” says Harding. “They’re the ones out there picking up individuals who might be struggling with schizophrenia, someone who is out on the street shouting at someone who isn’t there. They’re not necessarily a danger to themselves or others, but they just don’t have anywhere to go. Law enforcement would pick him up, but there wasn't anything they could do for them, so they put them in jail. From jail they these people are connected with a case manager who would then try to place them in the community. So they’re taking up law enforcement time, they’re taking up jail time, and it’s not therapeutic for the person. They’re not getting better in jail, it’s not the appropriate place. Having a Crisis Center where law enforcement can drop people like this off so we can take care of them is cheaper for the state. It also doesn’t incur outrageous hospital bills. And we can begin treatment as soon as possible.”

 

Hardin, who is a Licensed Professional Counselor and holds a Masters degree in Health Counseling, emphasizes that the overarching mission of the center is to “ensure that no one in our community has to face a crisis alone. We want to empower individuals to face the next challenge with knowledge, confidence, and hope.”

 

Once a person passes through a security screening and is admitted to the center, the process of intervention and helping begins. “The first goal is to stabilize a client so they can get back out in the community and work with their therapists for treatment. We don’t duplicate services. We don’t want to step on toes. We just want to be that bridge between crisis and treatment.”

 

The second major part of the intervention is meeting a person's basic needs. “If a person is manic, has been abusing drugs, is overwhelmed, or stressed,” Hardin says, “they’re probably not sleeping. They’re not eating right and hygiene has gone out the window. They don’t have routines. If we can just get them back into routines, stabilize them physically with three meals a day and make sure they drink plenty of water – if we can just do that for two or three days, the difference is amazing, even without medication. Healthy routines are something these individuals may not have had in a long time, maybe even years. But with routines, their mood stabilizes and they’re a little more optimistic about receiving treatment.”

 

The territory the Crisis Center focuses on includes Bannock, Bingham, Bear Lake, Franklin, Power, and Oneida counties. “But there are no admission criteria,” Matt says, “that restrict where clients can come from. We will serve anyone who walks through the door, as long as they are 18, because we are an adult facility.”

 

The center is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and has a nurse's station, private rooms, dorm rooms, showers, and laundry facilities for clients.

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Public feedback about the center, Hardin says, “is overwhelmingly positive.” The center has received encouraging feedback from law enforcement, the Portneuf Medical Center’s emergency room, and the hospital’s Inpatient Behavioral Health Services center. “What we’re hearing from them is that they’re not seeing certain individuals who they would typically see several times a week. They don’t see them anymore because they're at our center and getting the treatment they need. This frees up law enforcement and the hospital staff to focus on what they are trained to do.”

 

The center also conducts an exit survey when clients are discharged. “96% say they would come back if needed again,” Hardin says. “They would recommend it. One of my favorite questions on the survey is, ‘What was the most effective thing about your stay?’ and overwhelmingly, it’s the staff. This tells me we’re doing our job, we’re doing something right.”

 

The center also did something right in the case of the elderly schizophrenic woman who had been evicted from her apartment. “She arrived at the Crisis Center in the grips of this psychotic episode,” Matt recalls. The first barrier the center had to overcome was to build a relationship of trust with the woman. “This is difficult to do with someone who doesn’t trust anyone because she’s hearing voices.” Because of this, it took two days of crisis stabilization to build trust with her. “We talked to her with respect and treated her like a human being. She didn’t want to talk to a doctor, but after two days here she felt safe. We were getting somewhere with her.” After this two-day mark, she was ready to meet with a doctor, but only if her Crisis Center case manager would go with her to the appointment. “She felt safe with her case manager, and the two of them went together to meet with the doctor at the Free Clinic next door.” The doctor wrote the client a prescription, and the case manager took the client to a pharmacy that fills prescriptions at no cost in cases like this. They returned to the Crisis Center where they were able to stabilize the client with the medication. “Then we were able to help get her back out into the community, and help her find housing that better fit her needs.”

 

AT THIS TIME OF YEAR

The holidays, according to Hardin, can contribute to mental health and substance abuse crises. “Typically a crisis begins just after the holiday. Prior to the holiday there’s a lot of hope and a lot of cheer. We all get excited and think that maybe this is the year we’ll reconnect with that brother we haven’t spoken to in a long time. We have these big ideas, and we gather together for Christmas. When it doesn’t turn out the way we’d hoped, and we go back to reality after the holiday, there’s that letdown after the buildup.”

 

Hardin adds that Idaho is one of the leading states for suicide, and Bannock County is one of the leading counties for suicides in Idaho. “It’s worse for the younger generation,” says Hardin. “We’re losing a whole lot of good people who just need help.”

 

RAISING EYES UP

Hardin is concerned there is a population of people who may not know the center exists, or if they do know, that there’s a stigma for these people to seek help. “Mental health and substance abuse does not discriminate,” Hardin says. “It effects every person regardless of race, gender, or income. We know there’s a whole population out there that’s struggling, and we want them to know we are here for them.”

 

Hardin is grateful Farm Bureau reached out to him for information about the center. “It’s nice to have a company that’s not directly affiliated with the crisis center’s process to show an interest. It’s easy for me to reach out to mental health facilities, to hospitals, or to law enforcement. It’s harder to make contacts with others in the community to let them know our services exist, and that we do help anyone and everyone in the community.”

 

If you know someone who could benefit from the Crisis Center’s services, the center can be reached at (208) 909-5177, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You can learn more about the center at www.seibcc.com or www.facebook.com/SEIBCC/

 

If you would like to assist the Crisis Center, Hardin says donations are the best way to help. “In-kind donations, things like plastic spoons or paper cups, things like this we constantly have to buy are always welcome.”

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Click here to view a donation list prepared by the Southeast Idaho Behavioral Crisis Center.

 

The center also welcomes cash donations and can now accept them through Venmo.

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The transformation of Farm Bureau Insurance's former state headquarters and Scrooge's transformation on Christmas Eve show us the power of charity and consideration.

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Happy Holidays!

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