Local Behavioral Health Agencies Unite to Address Transportation Challenges for Clients

In 2020, the Foundation for a Healthy High Point brought together a group of behavioral health providers in the High Point community to evaluate integrative care and explore how they might work together in identifying and addressing common challenges. What began as a series of learning and sharing meetings evolved into the High Point Behavioral Health Advocacy Workgroup (HPBHAW), an informal coalition dedicated to ongoing collaboration on pressing issues affecting their clients. 

The coalition brings together a diverse group of organizations, including the Guilford Community Care Network, Caring Services, RHA High Point Walk-In Crisis Center, Mental Health Associates of the Triad, the Guilford County Health Department’s JustTEENS Clinic, Alcohol and Drug Services (ADS), and the Guilford County Family Justice Center. Despite their varied specialties ranging from substance abuse treatment to mental health services, these providers share common challenges, the most critical of which is transportation.

The group previously launched an anti-stigma campaign targeting the public about the need to access behavioral health services. From that experience, participants leveraged their mutual trust and understanding of our community to identify a lack of reliable transportation as a significant barrier to accessing behavioral health services. Challenges include limited public transportation routes, long wait and travel times, inaccessible sidewalks, and a lack of after-hours transportation. These barriers mean that patients can’t get to appointments, have difficulty accessing medication, and struggle to apply for or keep employment. Collectively, the group estimates that they spend more than $223,000 annually on transportation for clients. These are resources that could be better used providing essential behavioral health services. “We came up with common problem areas that all of the providers in the High Point area share,” said Teresa Hinkle, Executive Director of Caring Services, Inc. “Transportation stuck out as the issue that was on EVERYONE’S list. It’s one that we felt we could really do something about, and one that has a significant impact on everyone’s ability to provide quality services. And even though we have different types of providers – substance abuse providers, mental health providers, primary care providers –this was the challenge that was causing significant issues in people’s lives.”

For the past year, the group has been exploring what other communities are doing to address this critical issue and identifying possible innovative solutions. As they were actively searching for options, they were made aware of a Request for Information (RFI) from Guilford County for ideas to address transportation challenges. The coalition developed and submitted a proposal that would pilot the use of Uber Health to focus on getting people in need to services, and of getting people in crisis to care. The pilot would also focus on training and support of transportation workers to better prepare them for working with individuals who may be in emotional distress. The group was excited to recently learn that they have been invited to an interview as the next step in the process.

Integral to the coalition’s efforts is the involvement of the Foundation for Health Leadership and Innovation, Center of Excellence for Integrated Care (COE) as a facilitator. The COE focuses on increasing access to behavioral health care across the state. Their role was to bring these behavioral health and related organizations together to address mutual issues. “We recognize that there are all these mutual problems, and everybody’s at max capacity to do much about them,” said Sara Moscarelli with the COE. “What if we could harness some kind of collective power to make some sort of larger changes?” The COE helped create an action plan identifying the key issues to tackle. Their involvement in the collaboration is funded by the Foundation.

The collective actions of the group are a testament to the power of collaboration. Their work together offers each organization the benefits of multiple points of view. They have been able to take advantage of scale by leveraging their collective resources of time, people, and experience. Most importantly, they were able to work together to identify transportation as a common and significant challenge. This type of ongoing collaboration can be challenging in a nonprofit space where staffs are pulled in multiple directions and organizations have limited resources. It can be difficult to remain committed to a long-term effort, and participants can fall prey to territorial issues that can hinder joint action. “This group has remained really focused,” Hinkle commented. “We picked a focus area, narrowed it down, and stayed committed to how we can make a difference. This affects all of us, so how can we leverage the power of our group to really make some change?”