Shelby is a KSL reporter and a proud graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Shelby was born and raised in Los Angeles, California and spent three years reporting at Kentucky's WKYT before coming to Utah.
SALT LAKE CITY — A Salt Lake County organization is assembling a team of mental health professionals to help those with serious diagnoses that impact their life.
The nonprofit First Step House is a behavioral health services provider that offers case management, transitional housing, permanent supportive housing and treatment. In June, First Step House will launch Assertive Community Treatment, or ACT, team, which consists of nurses, social workers, case managers, a prescriber, peer support specialist, and mental health workers. Those professionals will work with people diagnosed with serious mental illness.
"Ten folks who are actively working with the clients every single day, and then the prescriber and a program assistant who are kind of more in the background, coordinating services and handling the logistics, and of course, writing a lot of medication prescriptions," said First Step House mental health and housing services director Jared Ferguson. The ACT team model is commonly called a "hospital without walls.
" Many people within this group struggle with a more traditional approach and settings. This team will work with up to 100 clients who are referred to them from places like Huntsman Mental Health Institute and Utah State Hospital.
"We're looking to help folks who have been diagnosed with a serious mental illness," Ferguson said. "You could call that schizophrenia, bipolar or a schizoaffective disorder. There are other conditions that would qualify a person as well.
"Ferguson said many of these people are homeless, may be in treatment in the state hospital or live with family or in group homes. "One of the things that we're looking to do is decrease instances of individuals who are unhoused and who are homeless," he said. "We are looking to decrease legal contacts, police contacts, adverse police contacts, hospitalizations and inpatient stays that are really critical, calls to EMS, 911.
"First Step House Executive Director Shawn McMillen said the frequent use of these resources comes at a cost. He said when these individuals cycle in and out of jail, shelters and emergency rooms, it creates problems in our healthcare and criminal justice systems.
"The social costs, the cost to taxpayers is, about a third, it's a third to a half, depending on who's counting or how it's being counted, of what it would cost to leave someone unsupported in the community and homeless," McMillen
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