In fall 2006, the Louisiana Public Health Institute envisioned community collaboration as a key component to restoring behavioral health services lost in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. With funding from the Baptist Community Ministries and Lloyd L. Fry Foundation, LPHI launched the Behavioral Health Action Network (BHAN) during a season of political change, federal financial support influx and heightened awareness that lack of access to mental health and addictive disorder services hinders the resilience of our community.

BHAN, led by Elmore Rigamer, MD, Chair and Sarah Hoffpauir, LCSW-BACS, Program Director created an ongoing collaborative to:

• Provide a forum for stakeholders to present problems and vet solutions in a post-disaster environment.
• Encourage transparency and public accountability of funds.
• Facilitate and support organizations’ contributions to the behavioral health needs of the city, including social services, primary care clinics, and the judicial system.
• Sponsor evidenced-based approaches to behavioral health policy and service delivery.

Plenary meetings and workgroups are convened to address critical issues facing the behavioral health community.  BHAN partners’ level of commitment and attendance exceeded expectations, considering each stakeholder’s overwhelming duty to rebuild their own agency post-Katrina. When asked to evaluate BHAN’s efforts, an anonymous partner wrote that BHAN’s greatest accomplishment is its “valiant effort at regional coordination of behavioral health.”

BHAN’s core values of openness, mutual respect and accountability in every endeavor sustain the collaborative partners through difficult dialogs and produce solid proposals for action to bolster the system of care. Consensus was established to advocate for three aspect of the behavioral health system:

• Crisis response services (including inpatient acute care).
• Community –based programs such as Assertive Community Treatment and Crisis Intervention team training.
• Workforce development to sustain recruitment and retention of behavioral health professionals. 

Recommendations drafted by BHAN workgroups garnered the attention of the local and national press, the Gulf Coast Recovery office and Governor Jindal’s newly appointed administration. As a result, the 2008 Louisiana Legislature and Governor Jindal enacted new behavioral health legislation to provide services that BHAN partners identified as critical gaps in the system of psychiatric crisis care.

Moving forward, BHAN will continue to provide and open forum for identifying gaps in the continuum of behavioral health services and developing community-driven solutions.

 For more information about LPHI’s Behavioral Health Initiatives, please contact Sarah Hoffpauir at shoffpauir@lphi.org or (504)301-9845 or Jayne Nussbaum at jnussbaum@lphi.org or (504)872-0781.