Shown at a mental health summit Oct. 23 are, from left, Fort Wayne Police Department Capt. Kevin Hunter, Bowen Health President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Rob Ryan and Indiana Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch. Photo provided.

News Release

FORT WAYNE — According to Lt. Gov. Suzanne Crouch, the COVID pandemic brought some good along with the bad when it came to increasing public understanding of the importance of mental health.

“I thought, we’ve got to continue this conversation. We’ve got to continue to put a spotlight on it,” she said, opening a Wednesday, Oct. 23, afternoon exchange between Bowen Health officials and others with a professional interest in improving mental health in northeast Indiana. “We’ve been going around to communities, just gathering influencers and talking about what are the next steps,” she said. “What do we need to do? How can we change the landscape for those that struggle?”

Allen Superior Court Judge Andrew Williams, responsible for all emergency detention orders and involuntary commitments in Allen County, wanted to know how the “system” that he served was working when he started the job.

“When I took over the mental health cases about four years ago, I really wanted to understand what everybody’s role was and where everybody was in terms of treatment philosophy, how well people got along with each other,” Williams said. “I’m not just talking about providers, but law enforcement, prosecutor’s office, everybody.”

His curiosity led to the Northeast Indiana Mental Health Summit, first held in September 2023, drawing more than 350 people to collaborate on ways to improve mental health services. It was a new approach, and it made an impact on the attendees.

“What I heard from a lot of folks was, ‘Wow, we all were in the same room, and we were able to talk to each other, and that doesn’t always happen,” said Williams. His efforts have helped break the perceived competition that can exist between organizations and other roadblocks that can keep agencies from doing their best for the people they need to serve. “I wanted to see that broken down, and I wanted us to focus on patients. I mean, that’s the point of all this.”

“I don’t think any one organization can do it alone, and those partnerships are critical to ensure that we are meeting the needs of the community, said Bowen Health Chief Operations Officer Shannon Hannon. “What is so gratifying is the common thread that I’m seeing. People were willing to get out of their own lane a little bit and say, You know what? I’m gonna do something different.”

“Mental health is a lifelong disease, and it’s not something that we can just treat once by crisis intervention center,” said Thomas Gutwein, Allen County health commissioner. He said the health department needs to play an important role in identifying and filling gaps in mental health services to keep the momentum. “We’re only going to be able to do that as a community.”

“I’ve been around for 30 years, and I’m starting to see second and third generations of families coming in with the same issues, and we’ve got to do more,” said Judge Lori Morgan of the Allen Superior Court, Family Relations Division. More started this September as the division began a new approach to cases involving children impacted by mental health situations. Therapeutic Treatment Court is a collaboration with the Indiana Office of Court Services, local court staff, the Department of Child Services, public defenders,and the CASA program. Five agencies (including Bowen Health) provide services to families served by the court. The point is to help families get better and stay healthier by developing relationships with them.

“As in all of our problem-solving courts, you meet with the families once a week, and so you’re developing relationships with them that make them want to make modifications to their lives and to get help, the help that they need,” said Morgan.

Bringing attention and understanding to the source of an issue is seeing success. In 2019 the Fort Wayne Police Department began a new non-punitive program to address the opioid crisis. The Hope and Recovery Team sends detectives and social workers to talk with people after they experience an overdose. The team works closely with other agencies to provide wraparound services and peer recovery coaches. So far, it’s working.

“We have seen a 32% reduction in non-fatal overdoses just this year alone,” said Fort Wayne Police Department Capt. Kevin Hunter. “That is a huge win for us.”

Stigma regarding mental health and seeking treatment is still a factor in getting people in need to get the help they deserve.

“People will not always walk through the doors of a mental health facility, but they will walk through the doors of a primary care facility,” said Bowen Health Vice President of Clinical Services Dr. Siquilla Liebetrau. “They’ll go to their doctor. They trust their doctor.”

Bowen Health provides an integrated care approach at all of its locations, where licensed therapists and psychiatrists work in the same buildings as medical doctors. They can receive primary health care and mental health care in a single visit. “They’re not doing therapy in the traditional way, with mood lighting and a comfy couch,” said Liebetrau. “They’re doing therapy in the exam room.”

Getting care to people when and where they need it is a recurring theme in improving the mental health system. A crucial point of engagement comes when people are at their lowest, or in crisis. Fortunately, state funding has helped bring a dramatic change to the face of crisis services, specifically supporting a statewide network that provides a number to call, someone to respond and a place to go. The pieces are still coming together, but they are changing the availability of mental health care for the better.

“All of us have a responsibility in this room to get the message out about crisis services and 988. It does fill a gap, but the gap is not filled when the public doesn’t know what those services are,” said Bowen Health VP of Intensive Services Tess Ottenweller. People in crisis arriving at Bowen Health’s Crisis Receiving and Stabilization Services unit in Pierceton are met by at least one person with shared experience in addiction and/or severe mental illness. “Research has shown that the peer role is so, so important and critical for that first step.

“Right now, it’s up to 24 hours of care, whatever that person needs, a place to rest, a snack, to have connection to services,” Ottenweller said. Connection to services means developing a plan to move forward in life while managing realities that resulted in the crisis in the first place. Getting off to a good start can add years to people’s lives.

Engagement between providers and first responders is another way that treatment can reach people in crisis

After working together to train area officers and others on how to best respond to people in crisis, the city of Huntington and Bowen Health are piloting new mobile crisis teams that can help free up police officers and provide better-targeted help for people in crisis. Two mental health professionals — at least one with lived experience — will respond with police in order to direct people in crisis to the support they need.

“It’s been a really well-received program in Huntington,” said Bowen Health Huntington Director Shelly Snyder. “Our officers and our community know that there’s no barrier to get people to the help that they need.”

The city of Fort Wayne Division of Community Development is examining another piece of the puzzle by exploring the impact of neighborhoods and social connections on mental health. Taking cues from U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy’s 2023 Epidemic of Loneliness study, they believe that community events and infrastructure can have a positive impact on the mental health of residents.

“I believe we’re leading the way, possibly the Midwest, for a department exclusively focused on neighborhood, social connection and neighborhood development,” said Dan Baisden, city planner and Fort Wayne Community Development administrator. “We truly do believe that neighborhoods have an outsized impact on our quality of life and our health.”

“My hope for today is that we continue to move our relationships forward,” said Bowen Health President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Rob Ryan, as he wrapped up the meeting. “People with a mental illness diagnosed in their 20s are dying 20 to 25 years younger than the general population,” Ryan said. “We need to find a way to figure out how to return these years to people’s lives. They deserve to live a full life.”