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    • Rockford consulting program grows from 160 clients to 800 clients with taxes
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    Rockford consulting program grows from 160 clients to 800 clients with taxes

    Harry Posted on

    Rockford resident Tracy Meinert remembers her first mental breakdown as a teenager.

    In his 20s, he was treated at the Singer Mental Health Center for bipolar disorder, a mental illness characterized by severe mood swings from deeply depressive to manic, and then lived in a nursing home for five years.

    In an article for Stepping Stones’ Instilling Hope magazine, Meinert wrote that bipolar disorder can be like “losing your bearings in the rain on your way to a place you never wanted to go in the first place.”

    However, stating that bipolar disorder can be managed with medication and treatment and the support of Rockford’s Stepping Stones, Meinert says he is on a journey to recovery.

    “This requires taking responsibility and having my support in place,” Meinert said. “Supportive living, money management, medication management, definitely DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) skills. I have borderline personality traits, but they don’t define who Tracy is. They don’t define who I am, like bipolar. It’s a part of what I experience.”

    Today, Meinert, 58, lives with a roommate and people he considers family in Stepping Stone’s 40-bed River North building, a supportive living apartment building.

    The building is just one of many ways Stepping Stones is using money from the county’s 0.5% mental health sales tax to benefit residents like Meinert and the Rockford community.

    Some of the other methods marked historic milestones for the 52-year-old Rockford-based nonprofit community mental health provider.

    We now serve children

    Until recently, Stepping Stones was a program that provided housing-based mental health services exclusively to adults.

    But with funding from the county’s mental health sales tax, Stepping Stones was able to expand its reach and provide services to another population in need: children.

    Stepping Stones used $500,000 from mental health sales taxes to open a new outpatient counseling center on Maray Drive in Rockford, and for the first time in Stepping Stones history, services have expanded to include mental health treatment for children.

    “This was a gap that we felt really needed to be filled,” said Stepping Stones CEO Sue Schroeder. “So about half of the people we see at the counseling center are under 18.”

    The grant helped Stepping Stones cover the cost of purchasing, renovating and commissioning the 8,800-square-foot consulting center. It serves people with serious mental health conditions who pay through Medicaid or a managed care plan.

    Another $200,000 from the agency’s second year of funding was used to help pay for the startup. The funds allocated for the third year were never raised by Stepping Stones because the center had become self-sufficient and did not need the money, Schroeder said.

    “Until we opened the counseling center, we were serving about 160 people each year,” Schroeder said. “This year, with the increase from the counseling center, we will be closer to about 800 people. And these are people who did not receive services before.”

    ‘An incredible impact’

    Advocates of continuing the mental health sales tax say it has led to the expansion of mental health and substance use disorder treatment in Rockford and Winnebago County.

    With the help of another $500,000 in funding from the Mental Health Board, Stepping Stones purchased and renovated a duplex in Rockford and turned it into a group home for eight men suffering from severe mental illness who receive 24-hour a day care.

    Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara said the funding helps provide critical services and fills gaps in services.

    “We can now serve the youth in our community,” said McNamara. “Overall, there is more than a fourfold increase in the number of residents served by a single organization. … At the cost of half a cent, it makes an incredible impact on our city and how we respond to and treat those in need on their own lives and the lives of their families.” “

    The 0.5% mental health sales tax, which generates about $19 million annually, will be renewed on Nov. 5.

    Jeff Kolkey writes about government, economic development and other issues for the Rockford Register Star. He can be reached at (815) 987-1374 or via email. [email protected] and in X @jeffkolkey.

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