On July 30, Barry Thomet, local outreach representative, received the Patricia Perkins IOCDF Service Award at the 23rd Annual OCD Conference (link is external) in Chicago, Illinois.
The award recognizes Thomet’s advocacy and dedication to individuals with mental illness and addiction through more than 20 years of service at Rogers Memorial Hospital
Theresa Rogers understood the benefits of gardening in the healing process. The wife of Rogers’ founder, Mrs. Rogers created a magnificent garden which, in the 1920s, drew busloads of people to visit what is now Rogers Memorial Hospital–Oconomowoc. Rogers was known throughout the Midwest for its beautiful landscaping and two miles of natural gardens.
Rogers Behavioral Health’s Tampa, Florida; Nashville, Tennessee; and Skokie, Illinois; locations offer a variety of partial hospital and intensive outpatient programs for children, teens and adults with anorexia nervosa, binge eating disorder and bulimia nervosa. The Rogers’ teams, however, often find their patients also dealing with comorbid conditions related to anxiety.
Every day, patients with trauma or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), courageously work with therapists, nurses and other professionals to decrease anxieties surrounding horrific events. Over time, the trauma patients endure and the anxieties that come along with it can become harmful for care providers.
According to Mental Health America, eating disorders may occur with a wide range of other mental health conditions, including anxiety disorders, depression and other mood disorders, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorders. Because these conditions are commonly co-occurring, psychiatrists will likely have a patient who has an eating disorder at some point in their career, regardless of discipline.
Optimal mental health is critical for overall well-being, but for those struggling with behavioral health challenges, life-changing treatment can be costly. Unfortunately, as with general medical care, insurance doesn’t always cover the total cost of a person’s behavioral health treatment or the length of treatment that may be most beneficial. No one wants to face going without a life-saving medical operation for you or your loved one because of finances. The same is true for your or a loved one’s mental health or addiction care.
Imagine leaving your job and family, picking up everything to move hundreds of miles away to enter treatment for your mental illness or addiction. You’ve been searching for months for a program that can help and for what feels like the hundredth time, a doctor tells you that you are in the right place. Do you believe it? Maybe not—but what if you heard from someone who has actually been there?
Rogers Behavioral Health in Oconomowoc and West Allis have been growing some of their own produce to help children and teen patients connect plant growth to their personal changes, reduce food avoidance and keep meals and seasonal treats tasting great. John Williams, director of dining services at Silver Lake Outpatient Center in Oconomowoc, WI, makes a point to include children from the Child Center and Adolescent Center when he grows the produce that will be used in their meals and other dishes at Silver Lake Outpatient Center
When a teen breaks a bone, friends and family often ask for “the story” of how the bone broke, how long it will take to heal and may even ask to sign the cast. But when a child is challenged with a mental health difficulty, it can be tricky for him or her to decide whether to share their journey, when to share it or how to share it. Wisconsin’s Initiative for Stigma Elimination (link is external) (WISE) created a program—“ Honest, Open, Proud-High School (link is external)” (HOP-HS)—to proactively empower teens to make thoughtful decisions about disclosing their story (link is external).
For some, having a mental illness can feel like you’re caged by a monster, leaving you unable to participate in the daily activities that you would like to engage in. That is the metaphor that Ashley Samson, experiential therapist at Rogers Behavioral Health–Chicago, started with in December 2015 when she designed new projects for her patients. Over time, that metaphor was adjusted to be more relevant to the different patient age groups in Skokie, IL.
