“It is not ‘them,’ it is ‘us,'” Jill Steiner said, addressing an audience at Hoogland Center for the Arts last Friday. She asked attendees to approach the morning’s discussion with listening and empathy.
“Put aside the belief that it’s just ‘pull yourself up by the bootstraps,’ ‘get over it,’ ‘move on,’ or ‘it’s just that generation.’ Denial and platitudes cost lives.”
Steiner, Citizens Club board member and human resource and risk management director of the YMCA of Springfield, was moderating a panel hosted by Citizens Club to educate attendees on the available resources and gaps for mental health. The panel featured medical providers and mental health experts, a member of the police and a representative from the Massey Commission.
Mental health is an everyday challenge in Sangamon County, panelists said.
Deputy Police Chief Joshua Stuenkel said the Springfield Police Department engages daily with individuals struggling with mental illness.
“Maybe not for every officer every day, but from our homeless outreach team to our neighborhood police officers and our patrol officers, someone is having this response every day and every shift,” Stuenkel said.
Dr. Christopher McDowell is an emergency physician with Memorial Health and Executive Associate Dean and Professor of Emergency Medicine at SIU School of Medicine. Similarly he said it was “assured” he would see a patient with mental health concerns when he went to work that day.
The panelists shared tips and resources to educate the audience on how best to support neighbors suffering with mental illness, from reducing stigma through sensitive language to recognizing warning signs of suicide.
Lauren Yoggerst, crisis clinician at Memorial Behavioral Health, explained the best hotline numbers to call, including 988 for suicide intervention and substance use crisis support and 211 for referrals to community resources for food, shelter, utility assistance and more. These numbers help de-escalate potential crises before they reach emergency status, at which stage people should call 911, she said. Both hotlines are available 24/7.
Those who contact 988 may remain anonymous, Yoggerst said, but if some risk of immediate harm presents itself, the person on the line may ask questions about where the caller is and whether intervention is needed. Should in-person help be required, the hotline can geolocate from the three major phone companies, T-Mobile, Verizon and AT&T.
When the issue cannot be handled over the phone, a Mobile Crisis Response team of behavioral health clinicians and peers will be deployed. Mobile crisis response is a grant-funded, statewide initiative, but it is run locally through Memorial Behavior Health and available 24/7. Those who need to contact the mobile unit can call directly at 217-788-7070.
In addition to the Mobile Crisis Response team, Springfield has worked to pair police officers with mental health professionals in responding to mental health crises. Officers on these teams receive Critical Intervention Team training, designed to educate officers on recognizing and de-escalating mental health crises.
“As law enforcement, while we are that first call, we recognize that we are not always the right tool,” Stuenkel said. He said the partnership, which was initially met with some hesitancy, is now received well by officers. “They see this as a resource,” he added.
Multiple panelists said Springfield is rich in resources for addressing the mental health needs of the community, but that coordination of service and access to them continues to be a challenge.
John Ridley, director of public health for Sangamon and Menard Counties, introduced Community Mental Health Boards, or 708 Boards, as a missing piece of the puzzle. Establishing a 708 Board was the first recommendation passed by the Massey Commission.
Precedent for the boards was created in 1976 in Illinois by the Community Mental Health Act, introduced by Illinois House Bill 708. Such boards exist in over 90 counties, municipalities and townships across Illinois, according to the League of Women Voters.
“If you look at what counties have community mental health boards, Sangamon County is kind of the hole of the donut,” Ridley said. He urged attendees to support a tax referendum, scheduled for spring 2026, to fund the board.
This article appears in Grillin’ & Chillin’.
It is good to see the front line coming together to address these issues. But, to solve it, we have to clearly understand it. Half the problem is the common belief that effective resources exist. Springfield is resource rich but, at present, ill equipped. Mental health symptoms are a sign that your mental faculties are in working order. The brain is doing what it is supposed to do. It’s the “check engine” light that signals that something needs attention. The body is programmed to regulate itself and maintain a constant internal balance. When it’s hot, we sweat. That’s homeostasis. An elderly person who feels forgotten may be diagnosed with depression, but the real issue is isolation. The doctor will prescribe a pill but there is nothing wrong with them. Depression is a natural response to loneliness. A bullied child might be medicated or put in counseling, but it doesn’t change the fact that the kid is being bullied. Medication doesn’t correct the issue, it masks it, to help people cope with the issue. People are not supposed to cope with what needs to be changed.
If the room gets too hot, the sweating won’t be enough to lower the body temperature. The body modifies function, adjusts, and adapts but the human body can’t adapt or maintain function in extreme environments. A heat stroke is inevitable—dizziness, confusion, and eventual loss of consciousness. The body shuts down. You can take off your shirt, drink some water, or fan yourself to help yourself but the easiest thing to do is address the external and turn the air conditioner on! The same goes for mental health. It starts as symptoms and becomes a mental illness or a disorder, not because the person doesn’t have the skills to cope, but because people were not meant to meant to. Life wasn’t designed for what we’ve created, it isn’t designed for life. Mental illness effects those who lack information, means, authority of autonomy, or the ability to change their circumstance. The Mental health crisis can’t be solved internally, on an individual level. The problem isn’t people, it’s conditions. Between 2000-2018 suicides increased 37%. The suicide rate among males is four times higher than among females. The suicide rate for children aged 10-14 has tripped from 2007 through 2018. There is a high rate of suicide in the senior community that continues to rise. Suicide is increasing the fastest among people of color. Suicide is the mental and emotional shutdown of the human body, it makes no difference age, race, gender, or economic status. We have to change conditions, if for no one else the children, who were, are, or will be 10-14. It is counter productive to suggest more mental health resources or medication.
“We gotta make a change It’s time for us as a people to start makin’ some changes Let’s change the way we eat, Let’s change the way we live, And let’s change the way we treat each other. You see the old way wasn’t workin’ So it’s on us to do what we gotta do to survive.” -2pac Changes