Outreach in Action

Assessing community strengths, weaknesses help determine future direction at Outreach

by Jo Mayer and Paul Crandall

Looking at where you’ve been and where you are now is a good practice for determining where to go next.

That’s what Chelsea Hospital’s Behavioral Health Navigator, Kathy Walz, helped our community do at the Stockbridge Community Outreach board meeting on Monday, October 16.

After enjoying cookies donated by Great Lakes Baker and pizza donated by The Unadilla Store, the meeting got down to business, with Walz posing some key questions to the Outreach board and volunteers.

First key question: What is the best part of your community — its strengths or assets?
Some responses: Community-minded businesses; a generous and giving community; dedicated volunteers; active community groups like the Chamber of Commerce, Stockbridge Lions Club, Masons, the Historical Society, and Outreach; places to gather like the Open Air Market, the teen center, the senior center, the library, township halls, and churches; and our small-town atmosphere.

Second key question: What needs do you see in your community?
Some of the answers: Mental health access for adults and youth, affordable housing, food availability, transportation, wi-fi access, and social isolation.

Ranking the top five issues needing attention:
Responses: Floating to the top was social isolation and reaching shut-ins. Other highly ranked topics included smoking cessation, mental health services, access to affordable prescriptions, and access to food (restaurants and grocery stores, in particular).

Walz came equipped with data collected through Chelsea Hospital, Trinity Health and Michigan Medicine to provide a preliminary statistical view of our region’s needs. The data Walz reported on was based on anonymous electronic health record data from these three health systems. Many of the findings mirrored Outreach concerns.

Additional needs identified in the data: Access to primary medical care, financial hardship, dependent care for children and elders, vaping and marijuana use by youth, childhood vaccinations, consent and relationship safety, substance use disorder, maternal and child health, hypertension, pain, and diabetes.

Community meetings like this are one step in a process that nonprofit hospitals are required to conduct every three years as part of giving back to the regions they serve. The findings help to steer what programs and services the hospitals will provide or support over the next three-year period, which begins in 2025.

Below are some previous initiatives yielded by the process:

• Since 2015, Chelsea Hospital has supported partner organizations (including Stockbridge Community Outreach and Faith in Action) that work to address community factors negatively impacting health outcomes. According to Curran, the hospital has distributed over a million dollars to address food access, social isolation, housing, transportation, mental health and physical activity among the most vulnerable residents of the hospital’s main service areas — Stockbridge, Grass Lake, Chelsea, Dexter and Manchester.
• In 2016 the hospital hired its Behavioral Health Navigator — a community-health mental-health professional — in response to community calls for help in accessing mental health care. For more information, contact Kathy Walz at BHNavigator@trinity-health.org or 734-680-5312.
• The free WAVE shuttle bus service partnership was launched in 2020 between Stockbridge, Manchester and Chelsea to provide free transportation between these communities, improving access to food, primary care, jobs and other resources. To reserve a ride, call (734) 475-9494. For more info http://www.ridethewavebus.org
• Through a five-year federal grant awarded in 2021, Chelsea Hospital is helping community members identify and respond appropriately to youth and adults experiencing mental-health crises. This effort is coordinated by Sarah Wilczynski, who provided free suicide prevention training and youth mental health training to Stockbridge Community Schools staff last year. For more information: wilczynski@trinity-health.org

“The hospitals cannot meet the needs of the communities we serve on our own,” Curran said. She encouraged anyone interested in efforts to address community needs to contact her at reiley.curran@trinity-health.org.

This column is sponsored by Stockbridge Community Outreach, our local food pantry, crisis, and referral center located in the Stockbridge Activity Center (old middle school) near Cherry and Elm streets in Stockbridge. Office hours are 1-3 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday and by appointment. Outreach49285@gmail.com, 517-851-7285, or find us on Facebook.

Kathy Walz, fifth from the left, assists Outreach in identifying community strengths and weaknesses and targeting needs to be addressed in the future. Photo by Gwen Reid

The strong meeting turnout ensured robust roundtable discussions at the Outreach Annual Meeting on Oct. 16. Photo by Jo Mayer