Avera Behavioral Health of Brookings received $100,000 from the South Dakota Community Foundation to improve and support behavioral and mental health services in the area.
The grant aims to help Behavioral Health Brookings make their services more accessible to the Brookings community through primary care options like physicians and general clinics.
The money can also help make these services more accessible to those who may have trouble affording it.
“We know at times insurance is a barrier,” said Nikki Eining, an outpatient mental health therapist with Behavioral Health Brookings. “And so, we’re using those funds as kind of a pilot time to look at what is the cost associated with putting therapists in the clinic and not saying no to anyone or turning anyone away (from) care based off of their insurance coverage.”
Eining said the clinic has seen an increase in referrals, especially in the wake of COVID-19.
“Through COVID, we’ve really seen definitely that increase in behavioral health difficulties that people are experiencing,” she said, “whether it’s just that adjustment of ‘I worked at home for so long and now I’m trying to find my routine back at work,’ or ‘I did online schooling for so long and now I’m trying to find that adjustment back to in-person class,’ or just a lot of different normal adjustments that we’re seeing.”
Other barriers to mental health care the clinic hopes to address with the grant include lack of providers, travel restrictions and stigma surrounding mental health.
Behavioral Health Brookings offers outpatient care and provides services for depression, trauma, anxiety, stress management and more for all ages from prenatal to geriatric patients. The clinic also offers referrals to inpatient care, psychiatry and addiction services.
The grant is part of the South Dakota Community Foundation’s Beyond Idea Grant (BIG) Program, which gave away $1.2 million to 14 recipients including Behavioral Health Brookings.
Stephanie Judson, president and CEO of the South Dakota Community Foundation, said BIG grants are meant to help organizations improve issues that require more financial support to fix.
“We want people to be thinking big about opportunities and problems in their communities and then how the resources can come together to solve those problems,” she said.
Judson added that Behavioral Health Brookings’ grant can help pave the way for other health clinics to integrate more mental health services.
“The work that they’re doing here in Brookings will hopefully be a model that can be taken other places and replicated across the state,” she said.
