Event Highlights Mental Health Services in NWA

A new comprehensive community health needs assessment survey of the four-county region facilitated by Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas reveals obesity, mental health and diabetes are top concerns among respondents. Results will be used to develop and prioritize future interventions.

Since its debut show in 2014, This Is My Brave has produced more than 50 unique shows across the country featuring more than 700 storytellers sharing personal stories about mental illness. The Northwest Arkansas version is returning to Bentonville for its third year this fall and producers are meeting with potential participants this weekend.  

The Northwest Arkansas Crisis Stabilization Unit opened in Fayetteville Friday, making it the third CSU to open as part of a pilot program funded by the state legislature in 2017. The 16-bed facility will give law enforcement officers in Washington, Benton, Madison and Carroll Counties an alternative to jail when encountering people with mental health issues. Similar facilities are already up and running in Sebastian and Pulaski Counties.

The second annual Ozark Guidance Summer Professional Development Series features sessions on suicide and self-injury, anxiety and unconscious bias. The series is June 10 through 13 and this year, it's open to the public.

Sebastian County leaders have applied for a $750,000 federal grant to start a mental health court similar to the county's drug and veterans’ courts. County Judge David Hudson says a mental health court would provide long-term treatment beyond care provided at the Crisis Stabilization Unit that opened in March. Both the CSU and the mental health court would allow low-level offenders to stay out of jail or prison and would instead address the mental health issues that contributed to their arrests.