Update: The program hasn't started yet and is in the planning stage (using Opioid settlement dollars). 

When the Avery County Drug and Crisis Round Table group met, they brainstormed and prioritized ideas that were generated.  Here are some of those ideas they are working toward for the future:

• Use of digital technology for mental health care; reducing suicide and preempting relapse
• Examine population needs rather than only those in the mental health care system, reducing morbidity and mortality among most of the people affected, including those in our jails, our schools, and our homeless shelters.
• Focus on the diverse needs of people with serious mental illness, a public health approach can build out the framework for recovery, including psychosocial supports and the need for inclusion and equity
• Moving upstream to reduce social determinants of disability and relapse, a public health approach can improve outcomes and lower costs for the care of people with serious mental illness.

In each of these areas, technology will yield the data, the interventions, and the connectivity, at scale. Working together will be critical to understand the context of the data and to turn the connectivity into compassion.  Closing the gap between what we know and what we do is the most urgent and tractable problem we face in the world of mental health care. This is the challenge and the opportunity for public health to bend the curve for mental health.

When the Avery County Drug and Crisis Round Table group meet, they brainstormed and prioritized ideas that were generated.  Here are some of those ideas they are working toward for the future:

• Reduce drug-use behaviors, and other negative outcomes such as delinquency/crime and mental health problems, both individual and environmental, through treatment options and support of local resources.
•  Change to the addict’s environment, that is, to the social determinants of drug use. These include the social and cultural environment, the economic environment and the physical environment. Our society is undergoing rapid change (for example, more parents working, longer working hours, changes to family structure, extension of the period of adolescence) and there are concerns that societal institutions (for example, childcare and education) are not coping sufficiently with this change. This situation may be contributing to the negative trends in drug use and other psychosocial problems. The influence of the environment is important and cumulative across the life course of individuals.
• Understand the complex developmental and social issues associated with the development and exacerbation of drug-use problems and addicted individuals.