Rockford’s counseling program grows from 160 clients to 800 per tax
Rockford resident Tracy Meinert remembers her depression as a teenager.
He was treated for bipolar disorder, a mental illness characterized by severe mood swings from depressed to manic, at Singer Mental Health Center in his 20s and he lives in a nursing home for five years.
In Stepping Stones’ Instilling Hope magazine essay, Meinert once wrote that mental confusion can be like “losing your way in the rain when you’re going somewhere you didn’t want to go in the first place.”
But bipolar disorder can be managed with medication and therapy, and with the support of Rockford’s Stepping Stones, Meinert says she’s on the road to recovery.
“It’s about taking responsibility and having my supports,” Meinert said. “Supported living, financial management, med management, definitely DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) skills. I have borderline personality traits, but they don’t define who Tracy is. Kind of like Confusion doesn’t define who I am. It’s part of what I live with.”
Today, Meinert, 58, lives with a roommate and people she considers family at River North’s 40-bed Stepping Stone, an assisted living facility.
The building is one of the many ways that Stepping Stones puts money it receives from the 0.5% mental health sales tax to serve residents like Meinert and the Rockford community.
Some of the other trails marked milestones for the 52-year-old Rockford mental health provider.
Now working for children
Until recently, Stepping Stones was a program that provided mental health services for adults only.
But with money from the county’s mental health sales tax, Stepping Stones has been able to expand its reach and provide services to another population in need – children.
Stepping Stones used $500,000 it received from mental health sales taxes to open a new outpatient counseling center on Maray Drive in Rockford, and for the first time in Stepping Stones history, services expanded to include psychotherapy for children.
“That was an area that we felt really needed to be filled,” said Stepping Stones CEO Sue Schroeder. “So about half of the people we see at the counseling center are under 18.”
The grant helped Stepping Stones cover the cost of purchasing, renovating and opening an 8,800-square-foot counseling center. Serves people with a serious mental health illness who pay through Medicaid or a managed care plan.
Another $200,000 in the center’s second year of funding was used to help pay for the startup. Funds awarded for the third year were never collected by Stepping Stones because the center was independent and did not need money, Schroeder said.
“Until we opened the counseling center, we served about 160 people each year,” Schroeder said. “This year we will have close to 800 people with that increase coming out of the counseling center. And those are people who weren’t getting services before.”
‘An incredible impact’
Supporters of continuing the mental health sales tax say it spurs an increase in mental health and substance use disorder treatment throughout Rockford and Winnebago Counties.
With the help of another $500,000 grant from the Mental Health Board, Stepping Stones purchased and renovated a duplex in Rockford, turning it into a home for a group of eight men suffering from severe mental illness. mental who receive care 24 hours a day.
Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara said the money helps provide essential services and fill gaps in services.
“Now we can serve new people in our community,” McNamara said. “In total that’s more than a four-fold increase in the number of residents that one organization serves. … For half a cent, it has an incredible impact on our city and how we respond and treat those in need, in their lives and in their lives.”
A 0.5% mental health sales tax that raised about $19 million a year will be renewed in the Nov. 5.
Jeff Kolkey writes about government, economic development and other issues for the Rockford Register Star. He can be reached at (815) 987-1374, by email at jkolkey@rrstar.com and at X @jeffkolkey.
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