91ɫƵ

header-logo
Physician Patient

Southwestern Wisconsin Behavioral Health Partnership (SWBHP) - Grant, Green, Iowa, Lafayette & Richland Counties

In 2015, a Community Health Needs Assessment conducted across five rural Southwest Wisconsin counties revealed mental health provider ratios were vastly different compared to the state at large, indicating that the area was underserved by mental health services. Coalitions across the region reviewed the assessment, and each identified a strong need for a larger and more stable behavioral health workforce across Southwestern Wisconsin. As a result, the coalitions from Grant, Green, Iowa, Lafayette, and Richland Counties united, forming the Southwestern Wisconsin Behavioral Health Partnership (SWBHP) to improve behavioral health in the region.
Southwestern Wisconsin Behavioral Health Partnership

Impact

After forming, the partnership soon realized they needed a broad focus to truly improve access to care. This meant both focusing on the larger community factors that uphold barriers to access and improving the levels of acceptability and availability of mental health care in the region.

Stigma is one of the most commonly cited reasons for not seeking treatment. The lack of privacy and cultural attitudes surrounding mental healthcare in rural communities creates social distancing and increases barriers that can detract from efforts to increase services that address stigma. These facts influenced SWBHP’s aim to bring broad cultural change by improving knowledge about stigma, with the ultimate goal of building a community that supports training, education, and dialogue – a community unafraid to seek help when it’s needed.


To reinforce this effort and increase the availability of care, the partnership also worked to offer community members and peers supporters trainings on mental health intervention, giving them the necessary knowledge and resources to provide early, but crucial levels of care.

SWBHP’s multi-county system for collaboration included individuals from a wide variety of sectors. Community members with lived experience, peer support specialists, and community outreach leaders provided personal perspectives, while healthcare professionals from primary care providers, mental and behavioral health providers, and community outreach staff contributed their expertise to the partnership. Additionally, leadership from local schools, higher education, local and county law enforcement, health and human services, aging and disability organizations, faith-based organizations, and more across all five counties were included to develop accessible systems for collaboration between counties to increase resources needed to confront and reduce poor mental health.

Normalizing Discussions around Mental Health and Seeking Treatment

Increased awareness of community mental health needs through an educational campaign on traditional and social media. The partnership also held community conversations and workshops that aimed to promote seeking and accepting help by moving away from shame, silence, and secrecy and towards care, community, and connection.

Improving the Navigation Systems to Access Resources

Promoted early identification of mental health needs and recovery options for individuals suffering with mental health challenges by expanding access to treatment through a robust online collection of community mental and behavioral health providers and resources in the five-county region. This online resource creates a more efficient and humane system that is affordable in cost and time, making mental health navigation easier to use, no matter what language you speak.

Increase Community Support for Each Other

Worked with physicians, mental healthcare professionals, and the general public to develop population-specific strategies that bring communities together, including a peer support specialist workshop that provides individuals with lived experience the tools necessary to offer support when their neighbors or they themselves are stressed or struggling.

Highlights/Select Work Product

County-level Mental Health Volunteer Groups:

Annual Mental Health Summit held in 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 & 2023:

  • (PDF)