05-22-24 Interview - Aurora Mental Health and Recovery CEO Dr. Kelly Phillips-Henry

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Currently right this minute, it isMental Health Awareness Month and a lot of
talk about mental health and how tohelp the community has been going on for
a long time. And I'm thrilledto have the CEO of Aurora Mental Health
and Recovery, doctor Kelly Phillips.Henry, thank you so much for joining
me today. Hey, thank youso much for having me. This is

(00:22):
an important month to really recognize mentalhealth. So thanks for having me working
in Aurora. And I'm assuming thata lot of the problems you deal with
in Aurora are the same as theyare throughout the metro. What are you
seeing in terms of mental health needsfrom the community. Are there any areas
that stand out as areas that needfocus? Yeah. I think let's first

(00:46):
start by saying there is such ademand for mental health, regardless of age,
regardless of need. But we areseeing some particularly high escilated areas.
One is chain and youth risk fordepression, for anxiety, very very high
levels of suicide rips, higher thanwe've ever seen before, especially coming out

(01:10):
of the pandemic. Our old populationis another population, very isolated, many
times very high levels of loneliness whichalso create real risk. And so those
are two areas that we really aretrying to do a lot of outreach and
service to that. I would sayfor all of us coming out of the

(01:30):
pandemic, many more books are strugglingwith stress, with anxiety, with depression,
with past trauma, and it's okayto ask. It's almost like,
in some weird way that we kindof forgot how to socialize. We forgot
sort of those basic human interactions thatare so critical because we're pack animals,

(01:53):
and now that we're back in theworld, we've lost those skills. Is
that kind of go along with whatyou're seeing. You know, it's interesting
when we say pathed animals, butwe really are. We are social beings
by nature, and we're a lotof our love and care to really help
us through tough times happens is ininteractions, and so you know, there

(02:16):
was a weird isolation factor that occurredduring the pandemic. And I think what
some folks realize is, in someweird, lazy way, it's easier to
stay in it's easier not to reachout to ask for help. Sometimes even
conversation seems and it's so important wedo just that, it's so important that

(02:39):
we have those important people in ourlife to share not only when things are
good, but when things aren't well. You guys have some pretty interesting stuff
going on with a rore mental healthand recovery. Tell me about some of
the stuff that you guys are workingon, you know, I would say
the biggest thing is last Monday,we've broke around on a new twenty four

(03:00):
to seven care facility that will reallyallow us to expand services across Aurora and
the metro area, which will includea detoxification unit, will be expanding our
beds up to forty five buds toreally help folks that are saying from alcohol
or any formal drug addiction. It'sa really rough three to five days when

(03:23):
folks go through that process and youwant to have that oversight to make sure
it goes okay. The other thingis we'll have a sixteen bad crisis stabilization
moving to this new location off Potomachand this is for folks that are going
through a hard mental health challenge andso many times we need to help them

(03:45):
do a short term stay so thatthey're not at risk to hurting themselves,
they're not at risk to hurting someoneelse, and we can help take a
full assessment, try to get asense of will counseling help, their medications
help, how do we get themstable and then get them into outpatient twitter?
Have you have a walking crisis teamas well? Yeah? Have you

(04:08):
seen now that we're focused much moreon mental health than we ever have before?
Has this provided more funding? Arepeople beginning to realize the value in
having those long, longer term bedsfor people to be in? Is this
making it easier for you guys toget the kind of funding that you need.
Yes, demand is high, andI would say our community has really

(04:30):
responded. So we have had supportfrom our City of Aurora City Council,
from both of our counties adams aswell as a rapid hood county fissioners.
We've had support from Congressman pro fromthe FUDDLE level, both are of our
senators can look for Invented. We'vehad FUDDLE support as well as from the

(04:53):
state from our behad of Health Administrationand Governor Fullest and so lots of fun
have been raised that way as wellas through all part of the Signal behavior
hope that helps find any of oursubstitutes programs, and they are continuing to
fundraise to keep them with that finalgoal. But what is happening in our
country is certainty called growing awareness tothis demand and need. Well, if

(05:17):
people are outside of your service area, can they call you? Can you
direct them to maybe similar services ifthey need help, because you know,
we cover a huge area, andI know that there are people in Aurora
who are probably never knew you existed. But how does someone who's not in
Aurora? Can they call you andyou direct them to where they need to
go? Absolutely? You know,really now in the state of Colorado,

(05:42):
we can serve anybody if they're inthe state of Colorado and that's her license.
And so we can do telehealth servicesif you live in DURNGBO or if
you live in La Conta, andso we can help direct if someone does
need in person care or serve youneed over the phone or through telehealth.
And so that is simply by goingonline to a Laura mhr dot or and

(06:08):
you can get that started with god. I will say telehealth is probably one
of the upsides of COVID because nowit is so much easier to access either
a therapist or a psychologist or whateveryou might need without having to be in
the office. I also put alink on the blog to the Aurora Health
and Recovery website so people can goto mandy'sblog dot com and find it easily.

(06:32):
Doctor Kelly Phillips, Henry, thankyou so much for joining me today
about this important topic and uh hopefullywe will talk to you again soon.
Absolutely, thank you May for yoursupport. Have a great one you too,
Thank you so much.