ROTARY SHINES COMMUNITY SERVICE BENEFICIARY - CATALPA HEALTH

The Community Service Committee received 30 applications from area nonprofits to be the community service beneficiary of Rotary Shines.  They were all compelling and worthwhile requests.  The committee chose to help create a resource library for Catalpa Health because of the collaboration, critical need and the substantial contribution they will be making to the community. 

 

Lisa Kogan-Praska told how Catalpa Health is a center of excellence dedicated to providing seamless, accessible collaborative mental health outpatient services for kids and families in Northeast Wisconsin.  Catalpa is a collaboration of the 3 main health care systems:  Affinity, Children's Hospital and ThedaCare.  Their mission is to help children and families improve their mental health and wellness by better access, coordination of care, collaborations, and prevention, outreach and education.  Some of their milestones include:  over 6,000 patients, over 23,000 visits, almost $3,000,000 in donations toward their $7,000,000 campaign, blended 3 organizations, doubled team to now over 50 employees and numerous community partnerships such as NAMI, PATH, HOST, Parent Connection and Lutheran Social Services.  Since Catalpa needed more timely access to care and there was such a great need, a diverse group of parents/patients, Catalpa clinicians, PCP's and community agencies got together for a 2 day stakeholder event.  They learned that when a child was in crisis or felt in crisis that it took 30 days to get an appointment, urgent care for mental health is needed and there is so much going on for parents that they did not know where to begin.  In April, Catalpa Health Access Redesign will include a more robust call center, crisis calls within 24 hours, intake specialist plan of care, resource library, timely follow-up of care for ongoing treatment and increased capacity by 60% while not increasing operating costs.  Rotary Shines will be helping fund their resource library with over 200 titles for parents/children, workbook titles recommended by providers, printed handouts for families on a wide range of diagnoses, magazine resources, sensory tools, community resource brochures, computers for online resources and a play area for children.  This library will help clients, parents, siblings, educators, providers and the community.  This will also help Catalpa achieve their goals of outreach/prevention, provide materials to educate families, improve access, allow clinical providers to focus more on treatment/diagnosis and it will provide opportunities for further collaboration with community organizations.  Thanks to the Rotary Club of Appleton for providing the funds for this valuable resource.