Mental Health Center of Dane County celebrates 60 years
On the cutting edge
On the cutting edge
So we’ve fallen behind has a result in our ability to provide adequate services to all of the people who need them. It’s an ongoing issue that we engage the
funders about on an annual basis. Part of the problem is that there has been a diminishment of funds from the state, which in turn has been affected by a
diminishment of funds from the federal government. So it has been that trickle-down kind of impact that affects us all at the local level.”
While mental illness treatment often gets the short end of the health insurance stick, throughout his comments, Greer talked about mental illness through the
viewpoint of a medical model. Mental illness affects a part of the individual’s behavior and not the whole person. And if treatment is provided early enough, the
individual can avoid more costly treatments.
“A lot of these symptoms of depression and anxiety, if caught early, can be taken care of in a matter of months as opposed to years,” Greer said. “We know
how to treat these illnesses. We have evidence-based treatments that work. But if a person can’t get to those treatments until they are at a critical stage, when
they are actively considering or attempting suicide or until they are having psychotic symptoms and are not in touch with reality, then our efforts to reverse that
process are going to be much more difficult and take much more time.”
In hard economic times, MHCDC sees more people come through their doors because families are experiencing a lot of stress and tension due to
economic losses. But there are emotional and psychological losses as well. “In terms of our sense of identity and stability in the community, we are what we do
in this society,” Greer said. “So a job that you have had for 30 years that suddenly disappears leaves you with a sense of losing your identity, of being uncertain
about who you are and what you stand for in the community. That in turn has a psychological impact. You are kind of at sea adrift for a while when something
like that happens. The longer that situation stays in effect, the more egregious the psychological impact. You go from wondering who am I if I am not a social
worker or a factory worker or nurse to just wondering who am I in general and what kind of meaning does my life have? That’s how people slip into depression,
particularly if they are genetically prone to do so.”
There are times in our fast, globally-interconnected world of large impersonal institutions that people also lose their way. And the faster things change, the
easier it is for people to lose the points of reference for their lives.
“People lose the context of their lives,” Greer emphasized. “That happens more often than it used to in the previous generation. More people back then
stayed in the same position their entire career. They may have stayed in one community. They had family and friends in a stable environment. All of those
things contribute to good mental health. In a society that is moving so fast that you can’t really keep up with it, where your job, your community, your status in
that community may be changing quite rapidly, it is very hard to have a sense of stability. If you live in a place where you don’t have a sense of neighborhood or
you don’t know the people right next door to you or it is just kind of the place where you live, that has an impact on you, that sense of isolation and not
belonging. If your family is far away on top of that, then you are stuck with the feeling that you are out there by yourself and whatever happens to you, you will
have to deal with it independently and autonomously and alone. A lot of people are not certain they can do that. Or they cannot do it for years on end.”
And as one of over six billion people in the world, people may also get lost in the daily grind of human existence. “Anytime you have a circumstance or
environment that tells you that you are no different from the person next to you, you’re imminently expendable,” Greer observed. “If you drop dead tomorrow, we’
ll just pull someone else in there and the beat goes on. Then you get that sense of dehumanization. What am I really contributing here? Whether that is in the
family or a business organization or whatever, people need to feel valued. So parents need to be telling their kids every day how special they are, how unique
they are and how much potential they have. Employers need to be telling employees that every day. That message needs to be coming to us from some source
all the time. It feeds and nurtures us and makes us have hope and gives us strength, psychologically and physically speaking.”
Over the course of the almost 400 years that African Americans have been in America, the African American community developed strong institutions to
help people survive the oppression of slavery and segregation. But like many other traditional institutions in American, some African American institutions have
experienced some social disintegration over the past 40 years.
“We’ve had spirituality and we’ve had community,” Greer said. “We’ve also had a sense of connection to a very rich history and past. Those are all kinds of
natural protections for us against a sense of despair. Those protections are eroding in our community. Families are being fragmented. People are turning away
from church for various reasons. And unemployment and poverty are on the rise. The pressures that are already out there for African American people and for
people of color and for poor people are being increased dramatically. And that kind of stress over time produces depression. When at every turn, doors seem to
be slamming in your face and you can’t get out of a situation, eventually, you begin to feel trapped and desperate and life doesn’t have much to offer you. And
those feelings, if they are in place for six months to a year, are going to end up being diagnosed as clinical depression.”
But while the traditional institutions have eroded, many people of color have been weary of turning to mainstream institutions. “Often in the African
American, Latino, Southeast Asian and other communities, reaching out to someone who is a stranger is just not done,” Greer emphasized. “It isn’t smart. It has
resulted in calamity and oftentimes hasn’t helped. We have to overcome that barrier, that sense of mistrust for the larger community that is instilled often for very
real reasons in communities of color.”
Yet Greer sees a trend of acceptance of mental health services in the African American community. “I think that has to do with education of what mental
illness is and a greater understanding of it and a greater understanding that it doesn’t have to be a life sentence,” Greer said. “That message needs to get out
over and over again in places where people can hear it. We have to get it out and hopefully people will listen. And also people who have these illnesses have
begun to come out, famous people that people look up to with respect, and say ‘I’ve struggled with depression. Yes, I’ve had substance abuse problems. And I
was able to overcome those.’ People can actually see evidence that you can be in the grips of these problems and extricate yourself. The more that happens,
the more mental illnesses are seen in the same light that we see physical illnesses, the less stigma that will be attached to them. At some point, what we hope, is
that stigma will be eliminated all together. Then it won’t be the matter of if I go in saying that I have these feelings or these thoughts that are disturbing to me,
that people are going to think less of me. It will be a matter of ‘This hurts, I have to get it taken care of so that I can get back to what I need to be doing.’
There was a recent phenomenon that seemed to have a huge impact on the mental health of African Americans: the election of Barack Obama. “It is a
sign that the hope and the dream of America is achievable by people who look like us,” Greer observed. “And that is something that we were never really quite
sure of. That level of unsureness ranged from person to person. And depending on where you were in this social strata and what your experience had been, it
might be almost zero. But Barack Obama and what he has been able to achieve, coming from a broken home, not coming from a position of financial wealth or
means, being biracial, being someone whose ancestors are on this continent and on another continent, all of those things would have predictably ruled him out
as a candidate for the highest position in the country. But the compelling part of that story is that somehow, he was inured against those messages. He and
Michelle as well kept their sense of themselves as people of possibility who could achieve whatever they dreamed they could achieve. And that is the message
that is so important for young people, I think, who are struggling right now.”
“A lot of folks who presented a pretty jaded exterior prior to this have allowed themselves to lower that defense and talk with true emotion and true
inspiration about what this means,” Greer continued. “That’s a great thing. If we as a race could begin to be as free in our expression as the majority culture, I
think a lot of things would come out that would be of benefit to America.”
And perhaps on a smaller scale, that is the mission of mental health professionals, to instill hope in the people whom they serve. “We, in a way, are
purveyors of hope. This is one of the intangibles that this agency offers and needs to always offer to the community. A lot of people who come to us have, for
one reason or another, temporarily lost hope. And until they can find it again, we have to carry that for them. That’s one of the most important things that we can
do. It’s maybe more important than giving them medication or giving them a place to stay or giving them counseling or whatever. It’s to help them hold onto
hope because then everything else becomes possible. If we lose hope, then it’s like we are walking through mud in concrete boots. And the progress slows a
great deal and it’s harder to do things that would even be easy under different circumstances. That’s something we try to remind each other of all the time. So
our demeanor and our attitude have to hopeful. We have to make sure that we don’t begin to think of people as lost causes or hopeless because then we are not
helping them. We are actually hurting them.”
Along with that hope also comes culturally competent services. Last month, MHCDC took over the operation of UJIMA, an Afro-centric counseling service
that MHCDC had set up with Mt. Zion Baptist Church back in the late 1980s. It also provides services through Kajsiab House to many Hmong elders who had
been traumatized by the Vietnam War and move to the United States. And it also has a Latino clinic that operates out of its West Washington Avenue offices.
Along with the times, MHCDC has had to evolve as its environment and the people whom it serves have changed while keeping to its core value of a reaffirming
belief in the possibilities of all people. That is probably why MHCDC has remained relevant for the past 60 years and will continue to do so for many years to
come.
funders about on an annual basis. Part of the problem is that there has been a diminishment of funds from the state, which in turn has been affected by a
diminishment of funds from the federal government. So it has been that trickle-down kind of impact that affects us all at the local level.”
While mental illness treatment often gets the short end of the health insurance stick, throughout his comments, Greer talked about mental illness through the
viewpoint of a medical model. Mental illness affects a part of the individual’s behavior and not the whole person. And if treatment is provided early enough, the
individual can avoid more costly treatments.
“A lot of these symptoms of depression and anxiety, if caught early, can be taken care of in a matter of months as opposed to years,” Greer said. “We know
how to treat these illnesses. We have evidence-based treatments that work. But if a person can’t get to those treatments until they are at a critical stage, when
they are actively considering or attempting suicide or until they are having psychotic symptoms and are not in touch with reality, then our efforts to reverse that
process are going to be much more difficult and take much more time.”
In hard economic times, MHCDC sees more people come through their doors because families are experiencing a lot of stress and tension due to
economic losses. But there are emotional and psychological losses as well. “In terms of our sense of identity and stability in the community, we are what we do
in this society,” Greer said. “So a job that you have had for 30 years that suddenly disappears leaves you with a sense of losing your identity, of being uncertain
about who you are and what you stand for in the community. That in turn has a psychological impact. You are kind of at sea adrift for a while when something
like that happens. The longer that situation stays in effect, the more egregious the psychological impact. You go from wondering who am I if I am not a social
worker or a factory worker or nurse to just wondering who am I in general and what kind of meaning does my life have? That’s how people slip into depression,
particularly if they are genetically prone to do so.”
There are times in our fast, globally-interconnected world of large impersonal institutions that people also lose their way. And the faster things change, the
easier it is for people to lose the points of reference for their lives.
“People lose the context of their lives,” Greer emphasized. “That happens more often than it used to in the previous generation. More people back then
stayed in the same position their entire career. They may have stayed in one community. They had family and friends in a stable environment. All of those
things contribute to good mental health. In a society that is moving so fast that you can’t really keep up with it, where your job, your community, your status in
that community may be changing quite rapidly, it is very hard to have a sense of stability. If you live in a place where you don’t have a sense of neighborhood or
you don’t know the people right next door to you or it is just kind of the place where you live, that has an impact on you, that sense of isolation and not
belonging. If your family is far away on top of that, then you are stuck with the feeling that you are out there by yourself and whatever happens to you, you will
have to deal with it independently and autonomously and alone. A lot of people are not certain they can do that. Or they cannot do it for years on end.”
And as one of over six billion people in the world, people may also get lost in the daily grind of human existence. “Anytime you have a circumstance or
environment that tells you that you are no different from the person next to you, you’re imminently expendable,” Greer observed. “If you drop dead tomorrow, we’
ll just pull someone else in there and the beat goes on. Then you get that sense of dehumanization. What am I really contributing here? Whether that is in the
family or a business organization or whatever, people need to feel valued. So parents need to be telling their kids every day how special they are, how unique
they are and how much potential they have. Employers need to be telling employees that every day. That message needs to be coming to us from some source
all the time. It feeds and nurtures us and makes us have hope and gives us strength, psychologically and physically speaking.”
Over the course of the almost 400 years that African Americans have been in America, the African American community developed strong institutions to
help people survive the oppression of slavery and segregation. But like many other traditional institutions in American, some African American institutions have
experienced some social disintegration over the past 40 years.
“We’ve had spirituality and we’ve had community,” Greer said. “We’ve also had a sense of connection to a very rich history and past. Those are all kinds of
natural protections for us against a sense of despair. Those protections are eroding in our community. Families are being fragmented. People are turning away
from church for various reasons. And unemployment and poverty are on the rise. The pressures that are already out there for African American people and for
people of color and for poor people are being increased dramatically. And that kind of stress over time produces depression. When at every turn, doors seem to
be slamming in your face and you can’t get out of a situation, eventually, you begin to feel trapped and desperate and life doesn’t have much to offer you. And
those feelings, if they are in place for six months to a year, are going to end up being diagnosed as clinical depression.”
But while the traditional institutions have eroded, many people of color have been weary of turning to mainstream institutions. “Often in the African
American, Latino, Southeast Asian and other communities, reaching out to someone who is a stranger is just not done,” Greer emphasized. “It isn’t smart. It has
resulted in calamity and oftentimes hasn’t helped. We have to overcome that barrier, that sense of mistrust for the larger community that is instilled often for very
real reasons in communities of color.”
Yet Greer sees a trend of acceptance of mental health services in the African American community. “I think that has to do with education of what mental
illness is and a greater understanding of it and a greater understanding that it doesn’t have to be a life sentence,” Greer said. “That message needs to get out
over and over again in places where people can hear it. We have to get it out and hopefully people will listen. And also people who have these illnesses have
begun to come out, famous people that people look up to with respect, and say ‘I’ve struggled with depression. Yes, I’ve had substance abuse problems. And I
was able to overcome those.’ People can actually see evidence that you can be in the grips of these problems and extricate yourself. The more that happens,
the more mental illnesses are seen in the same light that we see physical illnesses, the less stigma that will be attached to them. At some point, what we hope, is
that stigma will be eliminated all together. Then it won’t be the matter of if I go in saying that I have these feelings or these thoughts that are disturbing to me,
that people are going to think less of me. It will be a matter of ‘This hurts, I have to get it taken care of so that I can get back to what I need to be doing.’
There was a recent phenomenon that seemed to have a huge impact on the mental health of African Americans: the election of Barack Obama. “It is a
sign that the hope and the dream of America is achievable by people who look like us,” Greer observed. “And that is something that we were never really quite
sure of. That level of unsureness ranged from person to person. And depending on where you were in this social strata and what your experience had been, it
might be almost zero. But Barack Obama and what he has been able to achieve, coming from a broken home, not coming from a position of financial wealth or
means, being biracial, being someone whose ancestors are on this continent and on another continent, all of those things would have predictably ruled him out
as a candidate for the highest position in the country. But the compelling part of that story is that somehow, he was inured against those messages. He and
Michelle as well kept their sense of themselves as people of possibility who could achieve whatever they dreamed they could achieve. And that is the message
that is so important for young people, I think, who are struggling right now.”
“A lot of folks who presented a pretty jaded exterior prior to this have allowed themselves to lower that defense and talk with true emotion and true
inspiration about what this means,” Greer continued. “That’s a great thing. If we as a race could begin to be as free in our expression as the majority culture, I
think a lot of things would come out that would be of benefit to America.”
And perhaps on a smaller scale, that is the mission of mental health professionals, to instill hope in the people whom they serve. “We, in a way, are
purveyors of hope. This is one of the intangibles that this agency offers and needs to always offer to the community. A lot of people who come to us have, for
one reason or another, temporarily lost hope. And until they can find it again, we have to carry that for them. That’s one of the most important things that we can
do. It’s maybe more important than giving them medication or giving them a place to stay or giving them counseling or whatever. It’s to help them hold onto
hope because then everything else becomes possible. If we lose hope, then it’s like we are walking through mud in concrete boots. And the progress slows a
great deal and it’s harder to do things that would even be easy under different circumstances. That’s something we try to remind each other of all the time. So
our demeanor and our attitude have to hopeful. We have to make sure that we don’t begin to think of people as lost causes or hopeless because then we are not
helping them. We are actually hurting them.”
Along with that hope also comes culturally competent services. Last month, MHCDC took over the operation of UJIMA, an Afro-centric counseling service
that MHCDC had set up with Mt. Zion Baptist Church back in the late 1980s. It also provides services through Kajsiab House to many Hmong elders who had
been traumatized by the Vietnam War and move to the United States. And it also has a Latino clinic that operates out of its West Washington Avenue offices.
Along with the times, MHCDC has had to evolve as its environment and the people whom it serves have changed while keeping to its core value of a reaffirming
belief in the possibilities of all people. That is probably why MHCDC has remained relevant for the past 60 years and will continue to do so for many years to
come.
| Mental Health Center of Dane County Executive Director William Greer |
By Jonathan Gramling
Part 2 of 2
The Mental Health Center of Dane County (MHCDC) has come a long ways since November 1948 when it
was established at 22 N. Hancock St. as a primarily fee-based child guidance clinic that first brought mental
health services into the community with a psychiatrist, psychologist and two social workers, all of whom were part-
time. Since then, it has grown into a multi-site, 359 member staff service agency that serves approximately
10,000 people on an annual basis.
Throughout the years, MHCDC has maintained its commitment to providing mental health services to
economically challenged individuals and families. Most of them lack private insurance and so MHCDC receives
reimbursements from Medicaid, disability insurance or no insurance at all.
And while Dane County has been a leader among Wisconsin counties in funding its social service security
net, the fabric of that net has shown some fraying over the past few years. “We’ve been getting the same amount
of money year after year without taking into account the increased cost of doing business,” said William Greer,
MHCDC’s executive director. “So when you get a zero percent increase in your business, it’s the same as a cut.
Part 2 of 2
The Mental Health Center of Dane County (MHCDC) has come a long ways since November 1948 when it
was established at 22 N. Hancock St. as a primarily fee-based child guidance clinic that first brought mental
health services into the community with a psychiatrist, psychologist and two social workers, all of whom were part-
time. Since then, it has grown into a multi-site, 359 member staff service agency that serves approximately
10,000 people on an annual basis.
Throughout the years, MHCDC has maintained its commitment to providing mental health services to
economically challenged individuals and families. Most of them lack private insurance and so MHCDC receives
reimbursements from Medicaid, disability insurance or no insurance at all.
And while Dane County has been a leader among Wisconsin counties in funding its social service security
net, the fabric of that net has shown some fraying over the past few years. “We’ve been getting the same amount
of money year after year without taking into account the increased cost of doing business,” said William Greer,
MHCDC’s executive director. “So when you get a zero percent increase in your business, it’s the same as a cut.
