JACKSON, Mich. — Brandon Guild has been using LifeWays for 10 years.
“I’ve got schizophrenia, PTSD and depression,” he said.
During the pandemic, he says the organization went above and beyond bringing Guild’s medication to him when he couldn’t make it in.
“Which really helped out,” he said. “It’s just a real game changer having someone on your side especially in mental health. It feels like everyone is against you and anyone you can get on your side is a help.”
Now, those services can continue.
Through a grant, LifeWays will receive close to $1 million per year for the next four years to continue and expand its services.
“Our crisis residential unit, which became possible in part because of the Community Behavioral Health Clinic grant, our ability to respond to crisis services in both counties 24 hours a day, operating a 24-hour crisis center, moving towards creating psychiatric urgent care as part of this expansion with CCBHC and looking into the crisis stabilization unit model as well, which are all going to provide just very much needed services for the community members that are experiencing these acute psychiatric needs,” Crisis Services Director Wade Stitt said.
LifeWays offers many mental health services for people of all ages.
“I look at mental health as an evolution,” Access and Crisis Services Executive Director David Lowe said. “You’re always looking at evidence based best practices. You’re always looking at different developments of programmings or how you can cut red tape for the community and how you can streamline the access to care. I think that’s the important part for the community is knowing that there’s always going to be a life of suffrage, and we want to make sure that we get involved in that.”
Jackson resident and former Rose Queen winner Jessa Pettry has had her own mental health struggles. She says this is a step in the right direction, but the community needs to take a harder look at the problem.
“Mental health has always been really stigmatized,” she said. “I never really felt comfortable about talking about it with anybody just because what you see in the media and what you hear from people throughout your life. Not a lot of people are open to talking about it. So, I had a really hard time growing up with that.”
She says there needs to be more access to mental health services.
“I think that it should be talked about in schools more,” she said. “That way students feel more comfortable in school to maybe talk to a teacher or another student and figure out what those resources are because you can’t always necessarily have access to those at home. I just think that it’s important to talk about it, so I would like to see more of a community-based support system to help people come out and feel able to talk about it and be able to find these resources which we do have but aren’t really recognized.”
Guild says if you are new to mental health he would suggest LifeWays.
“They just do a really good job. I see a lot of people go through there, so I know they gotta be doing something right,” Guild said.
LifeWays is located on 1200 North West Avenue in Jackson and on 25 Care Drive in Hillsdale.
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