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97 .3 WZBG getting our visitor monthly visit once a month. We check in health wise with the folks from the McCall Behavioral Health Network and this time review cast. John Fecteau is director of mental health at McCall.
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Welcome back.
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Thank you for having me. Good to have you on the show. Our topic this morning is is mental illness and I feel like there is. There is something of a mainstreaming about about mental illness that it is now. Less about stereotype and more about a general acceptance that this is something that a lot of folks deal with Definitely much more so I mean even in the so far I’ve been in the field for about 30 years and I’ve seen a huge you know, upswing and people’s ability to talk about it, you know, actively. I mean, just look at the TV now.
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I mean, all the TV commercials for psychotropic medications, things like that, um, you know, they, they really have opened up, um, and a lot of our young people, the ability to talk about mental health, you know, concerns actively go out and seek treatment. Um, and there’s so many other options now for medications for different types of therapies and for pretty much if you have an issue that you you need help with getting services that can meet your needs. I guess almost one in four of us deals with a mental illness. Nationally the statistic is about 23 % of folks report mental health condition so it’s probably actually higher than that but 23 % report one and Connecticut’s a little bit lower about 21 % but that’s a that’s a significant number. Yeah and it’s it’s I mean it’s not unusual if you’ve got friends and acquaintance or something and they’ll say well I’ve got an appointment with my therapist. It just happened last weekend.
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Yeah yeah yeah so and and that has become again much more acceptable it’s like okay you’re working through something yeah and like any other illness too, there are degrees of severity or seriousness here, too. You talked about psychotropic drugs, and we do have that marriage of pharmaceuticals and voice therapy, you know, talking to someone in counseling. So I guess it’s really as individual as the person. It is.
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It is.
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And I think, you know, if you see someone that seems to be struggling with a mental health concern, a lot of times people are worried about oh I don’t want to take medications and so on that doesn’t have to be the first choice right you know plenty of anxiety and depression and you know adjustment disorders like that you know can be addressed through talk therapy and even if there are medications that would help they don’t have to be taken lifelong they could be it all depends on what your needs are but either which way there are therapies out there that can help and not Impact your life as much as they used to so if you have a condition that does require medications The medications that are out there now so many of them have no side effects or very little side effects But you’re right. There’s a broad swath of issues that people need help with and it’s just about identifying kind of what it is that you might need help with and Figuring out where to go from there Well figuring out where to go from there for a friend or a family of someone that you think is struggling Just initiating that conversation, you know, you don’t want to go too far You don’t want to pry you don’t want to be judgy, but you want to be helpful So, how does that begin right and you know, and that’s the thing too and and people they don’t want to push people away they don’t want to feel like they’re Insulting them and so on but you know, generally speaking if you see something then, you know Have that courageous kind of conversation with the person, you know, take the time to tell them what you’re seeing, you know, so you’re not saying, you know, I think this is going on or that’s going on with you and I think you need help. You’re just saying, well, what I’m noticing is this. You’re not coming out of your room a lot. You seem to be really sad all the time or you seem to be really avoidant of people.
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You seem to be really anxious and I’m worried about you and this doesn’t come from a place of me judging you. This comes from a place of me caring about you and wanting to say, how can I help you? So from there, you wait to see what they come back with. I mean, even though we’ve got a normalization of conversation about about topics like this, it can still be difficult to draw somebody out and to try to be helpful beyond that initial approach. It can be, you know, and I think a lot of it is in the delivery is you sort of set the table with that conversation by saying, listen, I’m worried about you and I care about you and I want to be able to be helpful to you. what’s going on this is what i’m noticing and if you get the person to start to say i’m really struggling in this area or whatnot then there’s a variety of options for you.
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Now, all the way from if the person’s in an immediate crisis, you know, if somebody is experiencing symptoms such as suicidal ideation or, you know, they’re just really struggling with their mental health condition to the point where they can’t care for themselves, you know, you always have the 988 crisis line that you can contact. And I guess it fielded over 50 ,000 calls last year. Yep. in fiscal year 25, 55 ,000 calls. And just so people know, when you call that line, what generally happens is 89 % of that 55 ,000 reported that they felt that their crisis diminished just during the phone call. So that’s almost all of them where they’ve experienced some kind of almost immediate relief that, okay, I’m taking a step towards help.
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And, um, % of the phone calls are actually answered within five seconds, which beats the national standard of 15. So you have some folks that are really on the ball with this and they could help get you hooked up with services immediately to resolve a crisis or at least get the ball rolling. Even beyond that, you know, you can call the National Alliance for Mental Illness in Connecticut. You could call the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. You can call McCall Behavioral Health Network.
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Our number is 860 -496 -2100 or even go to our website, which is mccallbhn . org and see what services we have available. And if somebody is struggling with something that doesn’t require, say, you know, immediate crisis intervention. It’s about setting a plan and following through with it and sort of You know supporting the person through it and you can do that in a variety of ways whether the person’s in the hospital out of the hospital You know one thing that loved one should know is that if someone is involved in Treatment on any level of care that there’s a there’s legal requirements, right? So there’s there’s releases of information that need to be filled out where the person receiving services actually gives permission for the treatment provider to engage with the family member or friend or loved one that’s involved and you know people that have loved ones that are involved in their care just, I mean, statistically and anecdotally just do so much better because they feel like they have so much more support outside of the treatment setting. But also the treatment provider gets a lot of important information around what’s in the person’s life beyond just, you know, what happens during their appointment.
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It sounds like just getting a start and letting that person who is in a varying degree of crisis, the matter that they’re not alone, that there are people that care, that there is a way up from this. Absolutely. I mean, all the way through it. from this? young man in his early 20s who had a pretty serious mental health crisis, ended up in the hospital. We worked with him, you know, his family reached out to us and to the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, and we worked with him from the hospital into one of our group home programs, then through one of our group home programs where he graduated, and he’s now living independently in a condo.
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He’s working in, he’s got certification in the fitness area in the fitness realm and he’s working in that realm right now and this is a gentleman that was really struggling with some very serious symptoms and if you met him on the street you would never know. We love success stories like that. John Fecteau is our guest.
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He’s Director of Mental Health McCall Behavioral Health Network.
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Once a month, we catch up with him.
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Our time is wrapped up, but I look forward to having you back on the show.
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Thank you. And again, if you could, website, phone number, if folks want to reach out to the folks at McCall. Our website is McCall, M -C -C -A -L -L -B -H -N dot org. So that’s McCall Behavioral Health Network. BHN .
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org and our phone number is 860 -496 -2100 and they’ll be able to field you to any of our several different levels of care to help you figure out what needs you have and what we could help with.
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John, appreciate your time today.
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Thank you.
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Thanks. Enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you. And we’ll have you back on the show. With that, heading back to the newsroom now. Good morning, Jeff.