Behavioral Health
Behavioral health describes the connection between a person’s behaviors and the health and well-being of the body and mind. Behavioral health is a vital component of overall health and wellness. Raising awareness and reducing stigma around mental health and substance is key to building a resilient and thriving community. The vision is to ensure that all Linn-Benton-Lincoln residents have equitable access to behavioral health support and treatments.
The long-term vision of these goals is to ensure that all Linn-Benton-Lincoln residents have equitable access to behavioral health support and treatments.
Goals
- Use a person-centered, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed approach to behavioral health promotion and destigmatization through education, communication, and engagement. Read more
- Increase access to responsive, transformative behavioral health services and supports that are culturally and linguistically appropriate. Read more
- Develop and improve a comprehensive continuum of care that integrates regional behavioral health systems and community-based organizations (CBOs) using a person-centered and community-focused approach. Read more
Goal 1: Build community resilience
Community resilience is the ability of a community to adapt and maintain their well-being when faced with hardship. This goal uses education, communication, and engagement to destigmatize behavioral health and promote resilience. Three key characteristics of these strategies are:
- person-centered—care that focuses on a person and their needs and circumstances, instead of a condition, disability, or bias (prejudice or prejudgment) that may be present
- culturally responsive—understanding and adapting to a person’s culture
- trauma-informed—care that recognizes the impact of trauma (an event that causes intense stress and has a lasting effect) on a person’s life and well-being
Goal 1 strategies
- Connect physical, emotional, and social health and well-being by supporting individual and community tools that promote resilience and healthy coping.
- Encourage help-seeking by reducing barriers to access through outreach to specific populations (e.g., youth, veterans, tribal, and others)
- Create population-specific educational resources that increase community awareness of existing behavioral health services and destigmatize behavioral health and wellness.
Goal 2: Grow a healthy workforce
This goal focuses on increasing access to behavioral health services and support for the people who serve the community. This goal identifies four aspects of healthy workers:
- Responsive—the ability to understand and adapt as needed
- Transformative—making a lasting, positive change
- Culturally appropriate—respecting and responding to a person’s cultural heritage, which can include ethnicity or religion
- Linguistically appropriate—respecting and responding to a person’s need to interact in their language
Goal 2 strategies
- Grow and maintain a healthy behavioral health provider workforce by addressing retention strategies, burnout, and recruitment. Example: For retention and recruitment, support career development opportunities such as internships, mentorships, and culturally specific peer supports.
- Reduce barriers to access to care including the physical barriers of transportation, rural and tribal needs, and culturally appropriate and gender-affirming treatment options.
- Create learning opportunities for providers that increase awareness around cultural competence and the unique behavioral health needs of communities that have been economically and socially marginalized.
Goal 3: Improve care coordination
This goal focuses first on the need to develop a continuum of care, a system of services that meet the varying needs of people throughout their lifespan. A comprehensive continuum of care means that all people can receive the right care at the right time from the right provider.
This goal focuses on two types of approaches:
- Person-centered—care that focuses on a person and their needs and circumstances, instead of a condition, disability, or bias (prejudice or prejudgment) that may be present
- Community-focused—care that centers on the needs, environment, and circumstances of a community
Goal 3 strategies
- Create spaces to engage in collaborative discussions for relationship-building across systems.
- Identify and address insurance barriers to behavioral healthcare access.
- Streamline the client experience across organizations by establishing a flexible data collection and communication system adaptable to different organizational requirements, limitations, and needs.
What we’re measuring:
We’re evaluating access to mental health and substance use services, workforce capacity, and efforts to reduce stigma and improve outcomes for all residents.
Why it matters:
Improving behavioral health services and destigmatizing mental health care are essential to fostering resilient and thriving communities.
News and updates
Key Progress measures:
- Increase in the number of behavioral health providers per capita.
- Reduction in the rates of deaths related to substance use and untreated mental health conditions.
- Enhanced community awareness and use of behavioral health resources, especially among youth and marginalized populations