NEWS & NOTES

A new partnership between Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center and DCCCA will expand access to Mental Health First Aid training across Douglas County. Since 2008, the program has equipped thousands of residents with the skills to recognize and respond to mental health and substance use challenges. Together, the organizations will increase training opportunities, strengthen outreach, and help more community members gain the tools to support others when it matters most.

Right now, parents in Northeast Kansas are facing moments no family should ever have to face. When their child is in the middle of a mental health crisis, help is often far from home. With no local facility for emergency psychiatric care, families drive long, anxious miles - only to hear there are no available beds. Days or weeks can pass while a child suffers without urgent care. For some, that delay ends in tragedy.

Clockwise from top left: Ivery Goldstein, General Counsel; Marsha Page-White, Chief Operating Officer; Dani Edwards, Chief Financial Officer; Amy Finkeldei, Sr. Director of Quality Assurance; Tamara Heishman, Clinical Director. The Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center is pleased to announce several leadership updates that strengthen the Bert Nash Center’s ability to serve the community, including the addition of its first in-house General Counsel, the promotion of a new C

There’s a moment many parents recognize - the shift from “we should probably look into this” to “we need help now.” For one local family, that moment came quickly. Their daughter had always been a bit anxious, but last winter something changed. What once felt manageable became urgent.

Bella arrived carrying little more than a backpack. Mental illness ran deep in her biological family, and by the time she came to Jane’s home, her life had already been chaotic, and full of trauma. When she was removed from her mother’s custody, there wasn’t even an immediate place for her to go. She spent two nights sleeping in a child welfare office before Jane could take her in.