Healthy Mind: Mental Health
At Beacon Community Impact, we place substantial emphasis on our Healthy Mind priority for good reason. According to data from the 2014-2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, the prevalence estimates for the IN North Central Region show that 4.7% of resident adults have suffered from a serious mental illness (diagnoses resulting in serious functional impairment).
In addition, the 2015 Youth Risk Behavior System Survey found that 29.1% of Indiana youth felt sad or hopeless for two weeks or more in a row in the last year. For the same population 18.9% seriously considered attempting suicide and 11.0% attempted suicide. Perhaps not surprisingly, suicide is the third leading cause of death amongst youth in the U.S., following accidents and homicide
In order to prevent suicide and support the mental health of our community, Beacon Community Impact has numerous initiatives and programs that help people get connected to the care they need. This includes our Adverse Childhood Experiences Initiative and our annual Leighton Lecture Impact Series event. Beacon Community Impact also partners with organizations who are working within one of our three focus areas:
Focus 1
Decrease stigma around mental health.
Focus 2
Youth and adult development; building protective factors.
Focus 3
Increase access to mental health services.
Community Partners
Community partners within this priority represent a wide range of programming aimed at improving the health of mothers and their children. Below is a list of our current partners with details on the programming they offer.
- Provide children facing adversity with strong and enduring, professionally supported one-to-one relationships that change their lives for the better, forever.
- Gentlemen and Scholars, Inc. is a community based organization geared towards making youth in the community the best versions of themselves. They do this
- The SAVE Program will mentor two children all year round at Navarre, Coquillard, and Monroe elementary schools. Mentor and mentee will meet in person
- Imani Unidad seeks to help marginalized members of the South Bend and Elkhart communities to improve their social, mental and emotional well-being through counseling,
- Promote education on a variety of mental health issues that affect the community. MHAM hopes to reduce the stigma some people feel about mental
- Creating coach and parent workshop curricula that addresses specific health and mental health issues needed to support the youth participating in the sport programs.
- Provides comprehensive, compassionate and affordable full scope family medicine and whole person care for the LGBTQ+ community as well as those who have limited
- This is a 4 hour class in which participants will learn through lecture and discussion about child development, youth risk factors, parenting styles, discipline,
- RiverBend Cancer Services improves the quality of life of cancer survivors and their families in our community through helpful advocacy, hopeful support and innovative
- United Health Services promotes the vitality of individual lives through education, direct services, and advocacy. Committed to the health of our community, we deliver
Beacon Community Impact Programs
In addition to our externally funded community partners, Beacon Community Impact provides the following programming within our Healthy Mind Priority:
- Program for fathers or father figures to build awareness of child development and the effects of ACEs. Program is designed to be an advocacy-based
- Students of the South Bend School Corporation receive education on healthy and unhealthy relationships, setting and respecting boundaries and good decision-making practices in relation
- Educates high school students and teachers about the warning signs of suicide and how to respond effectively in suicide emergencies.
- Delivered in the local school system, students receive coaching on how to succeed in middle school and education on how to be a good
- Annual event that provides mental health resources to the community at large.
- Provides classes on child development to increase positive engagement between caregivers and their children.
- Program for mothers and mother figures to be made aware of child development and the effects of ACEs. Program is designed to be an
- The PATHS program aims to facilitate students in finding and utilizing positive, nonviolent solutions to social problems.
- Middle school students in Elkhart County receive a risk avoidance curriculum that emphasizes emotional health, the consequences of risky behavior (focusing on sex, alcohol,
- Educates high school students and teachers about the warning signs of suicide and how to respond effectively in suicide emergencies.
