CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis was in Charlotte Friday to discuss the importance of behavioral and mental health access and school safety with local leaders.
Tillis touted the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which he penned, that made billions of dollars available to focus on these topics.
The bill came together following the tragic Uvalde shooting and was signed into law last June.
The goal of the bill is to expand mental health care services and to create a safer environment for students, educators, school staff and community members.
Senator Tillis’ roundtable brought together mental health experts, educators, CMPD, Mayor Lyles, the CMS superintendent, and others to discuss the issues and needs surrounding mental health.
Tillis said that this is the largest investment for mental health and school safety programs available with just over $13 billion up for grabs and North Carolina is eligible for a portion of those grants
“We have school hardening, school counselors, we have treatments cores, veteran treatment cores families cores and all of these resources by themselves are important but when implemented together they are game changers," said Tillis.
Tillis wants North Carolina to lead the charge when it comes to improving the resources it has to provide mental health care. Part of this is to increase access to care and to address the stigmas associated with it.
“Behavioral health is just like any other illness. You get sick you need help. So we are trying to spend a lot of time talking to folks about that early,” said Tillis. “The younger we get people acclimated on discussions around behavioral health the sooner we will get past this thing when people feel ashamed when they feel depressed.”
CMS Board of Education Chairperson, Elyse Dashew said the funding will go a long way to support programs in schools so students have everything they need to be healthy. She added that the district invested a lot of money in mental health services through COVID-19 relief funds and this new set of grants will help continue the ones the district finds to be most impactful.
“I think it’s great to increase school-based mental health services so you have mental health practitioners that will meet with families in schools so families don’t have to find transportation to go to the doctors where there might be more stigmas,” said Dashew.
Director of Medical Services, Dr. Kevin Marra for HopeWay, a residential mental health facility that works with veterans, said he wants to grow its services to help frontline workers
“We treat them with evidence-based psychotherapies, we treat them for PTSD and we want to expand that service to first responders, firefighters and police officers,” said Dr. Marra. “Those are our frontlines workers and they experience some of the horrific traumas that we don’t really see and these are folks we need to care for.”
Senator Tillis said this is a competitive process and that is why he is doing these roundtables so more counties know this is available to them and apply for the funding to support mental health care.
Contact Jesse Pierre at jpierrepet@wcnc.com or follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
If you or a loved one are facing thoughts of suicide or self-harm, there is help readily available. You can call Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or chat with them online. There are also resources in North Carolina available here and in South Carolina available here.