Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital launches new behavioral health initiative

Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital is expanding their services. With their new behavioral health initiative, they'll be able to offer services to those struggling with mental health issues, abuse, and even addiction.

Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital kicked off their new initiative Wednesday night with a film screening of the movie Resilience at the Manistique High School. The film examines how childhood trauma can have a negative impact on your life, and talks about how you bounce back and overcome that adversity.

"We're addressing addiction, mental health, and connecting people to resources that maybe they didn't know that our community offers," said Julie Hardy, patient navigator at Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital.

Trauma expert Dr. Mark Sloane was on hand to answer questions about mental health issues and trauma, as well as how to better understand them.

"We're not making excuses for the kids, we're basically helping people understand,” said Sloane. “We like to say don't ask them why, ask them what happened, that's the difference."

The hospital is excited that they can now offer care to those struggling with mental health issues.

"Right now, people are having to travel long distances for these types of services, so anything we can provide here locally just helps the community stay healthy," said Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital CEO Bob Crumb.

The new initiative has been made possible thanks to grant funding from the Michigan Health Endowment Fund, Superior Health Foundation, and others.

"That's going to move us through the first two years of the program, and the main goal is that we can keep this program moving forward based on the number of referrals that are going to our practitioners and our new addictions counselor,” said Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital marketing director Sara Giles. “So we see this program as a sustainable program in our community."

Like in the documentary Resilience, those at Schoolcraft Memorial Hospital hope that their efforts will help those in the community struggling to bounce back.