Tri-County Celebration Commemorates 20 Years of History

Tri-County Mental Health Services will celebrate its 20^th year of serving mental health and wellness needs for Clay, Platte and Ray counties at the Phoenix Gala Aug. 30.

Founded in 1990, Tri-County was built on the foundation of an earlier organization at North Kansas City Hospital, which had opened in 1973. By the late 1980s, national trends toward community-based mental health services and growing acute care demands for hospitals led to creation of the new organization, formally created on June 30, 1990.

The effort—and the challenges it met—is a dramatic story of mended lives and community service. The saga reflects the nation’s increasing emphasis on community mental health delivery and other trends. For thousands of local residents, it made a difference between living enjoyable, productive lives in the community and being institutionalized and marginalized.

“The original concept was that by providing mental health care in the community, people could continue to live in the community,” Tri-County CEO Tom Cranshaw explained. “In many cases, that means they can live normal lives, hold jobs and enjoy life. Community care is also more economical than large institutions. It’s better for the consumers and its better for the community.”

Today’s Tri-County also represents a multi-layered grassroots effort. The 1990 founding involved a wide range of community leaders who came together to build the organization from scratch. Without a large staff or the budget to build one, Tri-County also relied on what became its provider network of psychologists, counselors and other separate organizations. The model quickly proved an advantage for other reasons as well: it allowed mental health consumers to find help in their own communities, whether they lived near Plate City, Liberty or Richmond.

Tri-County met other community needs, too. The 1993 flood accelerated the community emphasis when families faced long-term homelessness, job loss and the stresses that go with them. Efforts to combat substance abuse saw development of Tri-County’s nationally recognized community coalitions and efforts such as Youth With Vision.

Tri-County today remains a trendsetter in other ways. The organization was the first community mental health agency in Missouri to practice a new technique for helping “dual diagnosis” consumers, people whose battle with mental illness is compounded by substance abuse. More recently, Tri-County has provided leadership in development of services for older adults and job placement, two areas often overlooked in mental health services. Tri-County assists with drug courts that are among the most effective in Missouri.

“Every year we help nearly 9,000 people in the Northland,” Cranshaw concluded. “And that doesn’t count the families and individuals we serve indirectly, through Community 2000 or by helping a loved one. It’s a tremendous story that grows every year.

The 2010 Phoenix Gala will be Aug. 30, at 6:00 p.m. at Embassy Suites KCI. For more information, contact Tri-County at (816) 468-0400 or email vickir@tri-countymhs.org.

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