(bright upbeat music) (bright upbeat music swells) - A one-stop shop for youth-focused healthcare services, Lifelong Access, formerly known as Marcfirst, recently got a nearly $22 million grant from the state to open a new hub for health and wellness services.

Joining us now in the studio is Rebecca Brennan, interim CEO of Lifelong Access, and Mark Jontry, Regional Office of Education #17 superintendent.

Plus we have the CEO of Chestnut Health Systems, Dave Sharar, via Zoom.

Thanks, everybody, for coming in.

I appreciate it.

Rebecca, I wanna start with you.

This is a big deal, lot of money, lots of things you're gonna be able to do with it.

Tell us what the plan is for the old Pantagraph building in downtown Bloomington.

- The plan for the downtown building is to bring in the Regional Office of Education in Chestnut and a few other named providers that we're still working to secure to provide, just like you said, that one-stop shop for youth services in our community so people have one central location to access the comprehensive services under one roof.

- And when we talk about these services, we're talking about a lot of different things from behavioral health to psychiatry, dental wellness, even addressing maybe food insecurity.

Mark, you've been with the regional office a long time.

Why do we have these needs?

- Well, you know, the low-income population and the population in need continues to grow in McLean County, not only in Bloomington normal but in our rural areas.

And so, in our case, we operate an alternative school, which is gonna be the primary partner in this venue.

And so to be able to bring all these resources under one roof, to really be able to do a warm handoff for both the youth and their families in order to get services is really, what was really attractive for us to enter into this.

And it's actually gonna give us more room to serve more kids, in our instance, with our program.

- It seems like you're trying to tackle a lot, which is good because, you know, a child, like say, they have a truancy problem, well, there's obviously things that are behind that.

And judging by this, again, it could be behavioral, could be psychiatric, could be the relationship with the parents.

So it looks like you're gonna try and tackle maybe multiple issues that are underlying in a child.

- Absolutely, and so having multiple cooperative partners under one roof is gonna lend itself to being very efficient, and getting those connections.

A lot of times, one of the challenges that families have is making those connections, whether it's transportation or just knowing where to go.

And so really what we're trying to do is be able to point them and make a warm handoff, as I said earlier, to people that can connect them and make the connections that they need in order to get the services that they need.

So we're really excited.

- And Dave, I wanna talk a little bit about Chestnut Health Systems and how they are involved in this.

It seems like, as the years go on, you know, when we talk about kids and issues they're having, behavioral seems to be coming up a lot more than it did at one time.

And, again, there's a lot behind that.

But tell us how Chestnut can help out with that.

- Yeah, we know, Mark, that there really is an unaddressed mental health crisis and that the need is not really being met.

So, as Mark said, having this under one roof where the agency partners are not just tenants.

We come there in a formal collaboration, you know, agreeing to refer to each other and to have similar assessments so we know what different youth need.

And so what Chestnut will bring to the table really is some pediatric services through our federally qualified health center, open up a new pediatric clinic, have a dental wellness component there, but also integrate those services with psychiatry, with outpatient behavioral health, and have a strong focus on a very large unmet need, which is youth substance use, which is really, in the state, a crisis.

The youth substance abuse treatment system has been decimated over the past several years.

And yet we know the problem is getting bigger, not smaller.

So this collaboration, bringing all this together will really help improve outcomes for a lot of these kids.

- And Dave, for students in, say, McLean County or the other three counties that the regional office serves, do you know how this is gonna work yet in terms of, will a teacher or a parent try and get a child referred, or do you know what the process is gonna be to get children into this situation?

- Yeah, I think there'll be a lot of what we would call cross referrals, where Mark's Regional Alternative School may refer to a service, and we'll refer back, we'll refer to each other, and we'll take a close look.

Something the state asked us to do which is really important is look at social determinants of health and use that assessment to determine some of these kids' needs, whether they be educational, on the spectrum, behavioral health, any number of areas, and really refer to each other.

And there'll be no wrong door.

So you don't have to know exactly what service you need.

We'll figure it out for you, and we'll get you to the right place, at least within, you know, under this single roof.

- And I'll ask you, either Rebecca or Mark, whoever wants to answer, do you know how many kids or young adults we'll be able to serve at one time with this new service?

- Oh.

- So for us, out of our alternative school, we currently have about 250 kids that are enrolled in our Bloomington campus.

This move will actually allow us to increase the number of students that are gonna be served in referral.

We actually have a waiting list for our program right now.

And so we're constrained by our space right now.

We're at capacity.

So we're gonna have well north of 300 students directly referred from our program potentially.

And I think an ancillary benefit of that, too, is there could be a situation, obviously, where family members, siblings, things like that are, connections are made as a result of that as well.

- Rebecca, in your press release, you talked about some of the challenges facing kids in McLean County.

If I can just throw some numbers out there, 3,200 lived at or below poverty.

3,300 faced a behavioral health crisis.

Substance abuse, chronic absenteeism, lot of bad stuff happening to these kids.

Is that, I guess, Mark, maybe this is a question for you, are those numbers typical for a county, or is McLean County higher, lower than average?

- I would say McLean County's probably average, maybe a little elevated.

I think, when you talk about a larger Metropolitan county, those numbers are probably on par.

But there are other counties that have a much higher percentage, honestly.

But at the end of the day, it's certainly issues that we need to address, right, for a healthy community.

And so we really wanna take as many steps as possible to try to mitigate those issues and reduce those numbers.

- And Dave, when we're talking about some of these issues with kids, are these things that Chestnut is seeing when they are trying to help out kids or see what maybe some of the issues are?

- We do see it, yes.

We've seen this need for a long time.

And definitely, you know, this is gonna take a couple of years to get all this together with the construction project.

But the sooner we get it going, the better.

The other thing I'll add is that, and this was one of Mark's visions, to have a recreational and fitness center built into this building so that kids have that outlet, and they can come in and play pickleball or ping pong or half court basketball or, you know, workout.

But that's really important for youth, right, to have that physical outlet.

So we're really thrilled that that will be a part of this.

And it's part of wellness for sure.

And so, you know, in that sense, we hope to bring kids in just for that part of it.

- Rebecca, it sounds like you're gonna have a waiting list of excited people ready to use these services.

- Yes.

- Do you know how you're gonna prioritize, you know, who may start whatever service first, how that process is gonna work?

- So our goal will be to get the Regional Office of Education into the building first to be able to start getting services so they can move locations.

But then for our services in Chestnut, it will really be based on the need and what we can serve at that point.

- Sure, and Rebecca, tell us a little bit more about Lifelong Access.

Again, it used to be called Marcfirst.

So people are probably familiar with that.

It takes a while to get the name change going.

But tell us a little bit more about what your organization does for people in the area.

- So with Lifelong Access, we can serve adults with developmental disabilities in our day program.

And that's what we'll bring over to the new Pantagraph building.

And that will just give us the ability to serve even more adults that need those supports.

We're also going to be able to serve our Supported Employment program and move that so we have more spaces for more adults who are seeking jobs, who also have developmental disabilities.

We're bringing over our Applied Behavior Analysis program for our kiddos who need supports to be able to transition back into a classroom setting.

And then we'll also be able to support youth and teen mental health services as well.

- [Mark Welp] Are you gonna need more folks to get all this done?

- Yes, we are looking at, for our team alone, bringing in about 55 new employees to this new project, which we're really excited for.

- Wow, well, I know the folks in Bloomington are excited not only to have the services, but they think it's gonna be a little economic boost to the area.

But certainly the services are what's more important.

Mark, you know, at the end of this, when I say at the end, once you're moved in, and you're starting, what kind of changes or things do you hope to see right away?

- Some of the things I hope to see are just, you know, are students more stabilized, you know, because of these services that we're gonna provide for them.

Additionally, I think it will increase their opportunities for gainful employment, to be more successful with post-secondary education opportunities and things like that.

We wanna remove as many socioeconomic barriers and mental health barriers that are impeding their ability to become successful adults, be that direct to the workforce into post-secondary education, certification programs, and all that.

That's really what we want to see is a continued growth in their readiness to be viable contributors to society.

And so that'll be our win.

And obviously, a healthier community as a result is gonna be a win for everybody.

And not to mention, honestly, we feel, collectively, that the revitalization of that particular building in downtown Bloomington is gonna help spur economic redevelopment in downtown Bloomington as well.

- From Chestnut's point of view, Dave, I know that you've helped a lot of people in a lot of different locations.

Is this gonna be something, a unique location for you to do business in, in terms of there may be a lot of people around, it may be a hustle and bustle that your folks aren't used to?

- Not necessarily new.

We're on the west side of Bloomington now.

You know, we have a community health center for the medically underserved, a dental clinic, and adult residential addiction treatment.

So we're already on the west side, and we're not too far from this building.

But being able to go in there and hopefully find a pediatrician, you know, and some nurse practitioners that wanna focus on kids, certainly there's a terrible shortage of psychiatrists, you know, and particularly adolescent psychiatrists, so bringing that, but you know, if we can address that workforce shortage issue in bringing that kind of talent together, we've always done it on this side, so I think that's pretty comfortable for us.

- Well, talking about the underserved, I'm curious what kind of issues and challenges underserved students may have compared to a student, say, who comes from a solid, economically viable household.

They, of course, have problems, too, but those underserved kids seem like they may have a little bit more going against them.

- Yeah, I think a big part of it is really related to access, right?

Those with higher means have have greater access.

And so the vision of this whole new continuum of care that we're talking about will really increase access for particularly some of these kids that are underserved and maybe haven't seen a dentist in years or have a serious unaddressed mental health problem.

And so all of that will...

I think access is really the name of our game.

- Rebecca, besides the Regional Office of Education in Chestnut, do you have any other groups that are on board and coming in the building yet, or are you still looking?

- We're looking for a food provider, which Midwest is a solid opportunity to come into the building.

We're still looking for a recreational provider to help us oversee the new gym.

And then we're also looking for another youth behavioral health support, an additional provider with Chestnut and the Lifelong Access.

- How is the building?

I mean, everybody, I think, that lives in the Twin Cities has seen the outside of it but maybe not the inside.

But what kind of things need to be done, and is that gonna be a big undertaking?

- Yeah, so that's why the project's going to take about two years.

The inside needs to be completely demolitioned and just rebuilt.

And right now, it's just a lot of spiderwebs and just a lot of dark hallways.

So really looking forward to bringing that building back to life and trying to maintain as much of the outside structure to keep that just historical component to the building.

- Have you had plans made yet for this, or were you waiting for that grant to be 100% in the bag?

- We have initial plans for the space and what it could look like, but now that we have this grant, we'll go back and dive into the design and make it more final.

- Mark, you've been in the education business a long time.

You think this is gonna be a game changer?

- I really do.

I really do.

I think this particular model, in particular, is not found a whole lot of places across the state.

I don't know about the country, but across the state, I think this type of collaboration doesn't occur a whole lot other than maybe special education cooperatives and alternative programs.

But the breadth of social service and medical and other providers that are gonna be under one roof and really providing these opportunities, I think, is really unique.

And so I think, collectively, all of us, at least three of us that are starting down this path are really, really excited about potentially demonstrating a model that can be viable to be duplicated across the state hopefully, and with obviously some investments, continued investments from the either the state and/or the federal level to create healthier communities.

So for that, I think we're all really excited about what we can do and what it could turn out to be.

- Sure.

Anything with the grant?

You know, anything you have to do, or you can't do that's in order to get this money, or were they pretty open with it?

- I think there was definitely some components to it.

Having a service like Chestnut in the plan was a need.

Just they recognize that through HFS being something that they're looking for.

And so that's the biggest component that has to happen.

And I believe, I mean, the way we have the grant with all of the different social service providers is really what we are obligated to fulfill now that we've brain thought this collaborative, so yeah.

- Dave, can you tell us a little bit more about being in this building and having all these different services under one roof, and what kind of advantage that gives to folks at Chestnut because they've maybe been dealing with these kids already, but now they'll have other places, other organizations within walking distance for these kids to use.

- Yeah, we really can't underestimate or underappreciate what co-location can do, when you're co-located kind of in a human services mall, if you will, and really have an ethic of, as Mark said, you know, real collaboration.

There's a lot of, the word gets thrown around a lot, there's a lot of lip service towards it, but this will be a meaningful, a genuine collaboration, and we know that outcomes are better for youth when services are not done in silos and when different agencies come together to form a team, and their staff talk to each other, and can refer and can have meetings about what's best for these youth.

I'm confident that there'll be some really superior outcomes both from a health, behavioral health, wellness, in education, and really the full spectrum.

- Do you anticipate, Dave, doing anything differently in terms of, you know, if you have a...

I assume your folks mostly do one-on-one with kids, but with so many people probably wanting to use this, would there be any way you would, say, do group sessions, anything like that?

- I think group sessions could be possible.

It's a little bit more difficult getting kids together sometimes with, for example, substance use with outpatient treatment.

But I think we will, we'll be looking at some group work.

We hope to do some more work with urgent care just around behavioral health, urgent care, and crisis intervention really to deflect from the emergency department.

I think you threw out a statistic earlier that we had 3,300 behavioral health emergencies of youth in this county last year.

So it's quite expensive when they end up in the emergency room and wait to find a service.

So if we can, when it's appropriate, you know, when they don't need a medical setting per se, we hope to deflect some of those youth and be able to deal with the crisis to prevent a hospitalization or an emergency room visit.

And so, you know, those are the kind of goals that we have.

- Sure, Rebecca, like we said earlier, almost $22 million in a grant from the state.

Do you know how much of that is gonna be going towards buying the building and renovating it?

Is it gonna be a good chunk of that money?

- So the total of the 22 million will go to the renovations and the equipment within the building.

- Okay.

Has the building already been purchased?

- No, it's still a work in progress, but soon, mm-hmm.

- Still work in progress.

Okay, so as far as once you get all that done, and you're open for business, funding, what's that gonna be like?

Is that going to be a big issue for you guys?

- So our funding will come through our tenants that will be within the building and then just our own services with the billing.

And so that's a huge piece of how it will be sustainable.

But for the construction of the building itself, there's still an opportunity for us to seek additional funds to make sure that we have all of the equipment and such that we need, especially the gym and the pickleball court and the rock wall that was mentioned earlier.

So we're still hoping to secure additional funds for it, but beyond that, it will be just our services that will help just maintain.

- Sure, and Mark, Rebecca mentioned needing a lot of new employees to help out with this.

Are you gonna be hiring any more people?

- Yeah, we're gonna increase the number of classrooms that we have.

And so we'll be hiring additional teachers.

And (clears throat) excuse me, there'll be a possibility for us to additionally hire some more additional support staff or direct support staff to provide those ancillary services as well, as we grow.

- Now, are you moving your whole, all of your offices into that building or just- - Just the alternative school.

Just the alternative school, yeah.

- And, again, about how many kids are in the alternative school?

- Right now, we have 250, and we'll serve well north of 300 once we make this move.

- If you could serve an infinite amount of kids, how many do you think there'd be?

- You know, that's tough to say.

I think there's probably a general capacity around, for the programming that goes on there, probably around 350 to 400.

You know, there are other needs.

We actually run a separate program already with Lifelong at their headquarters for students with significant mental health hospitalization issues in grades 6 through 12.

So that's gonna continue to operate.

But that's really a separate population from what we're serving in this program.

- And Dave, what about Chestnut?

Are you gonna need some more folks to help out?

- We will, yeah.

We haven't put pen to paper on that yet, but we definitely will, and we'll be looking for folks with youth background and experience for sure.

- And Dave, tell us why Chestnut got involved in this and, you know, you've been around for a long time, have a lot of locations, why you're the best folks to help out with this?

- We've just got a lot of experience, you know, in this space, a long history.

It's core to our mission.

It's core to our values.

We firmly believe in using treatments that are known to work and training staff how to deliver those treatments.

You know, it's critically important these days that we use evidence-based approaches, and that's something we'll bring.

And then there's just a lot to be said for integrated care, which is missing.

And having a pediatrician be able to talk to a teacher, you know, and work together and communicate about what's in the best interests of that young person, you know, is really beneficial.

And that doesn't require necessarily an expensive electronic medical record to make that happen.

You know, that can just be happening through natural organic conversations.

- With all of Chestnut's locations, have you been involved in any kind of a collaboration like this before?

- We have, yeah.

I mean, I think Rebecca said it earlier, it's core to our strategy.

Collaborative care is really, really important.

And we can't meet all needs, and there are other agencies that deliver things that we don't.

So let's bring 'em together.

And I think we hope to recruit some additional tenants in this building we haven't even really thought about that could do some other things and, you know, focused on mainly youth.

So, but yeah, we have a long history in this, and I think we're well positioned to be a good partner.

- Well, it's very exciting.

I'm glad it's bringing jobs and, of course, all the things that are gonna help our youth and other people.

What's our timeline?

When do we hope to cut the ribbon on this?

- So our goal will be by the end of 2026, no later, that we'll have our first tenant in the building.

So we're looking at design work within the next three to six months so we can start gutting out the inside and getting the first, the regional office into the building.

- All right, very exciting stuff.

Rebecca Brennan with Lifelong Access, Mark Jontry, Regional Office of Education #17, and Dave Sharar, he joins us via Zoom, with Chestnut Health Systems, we thank you all for being here and- - Thank you.

- Best of luck with this very important project.

- Thank you.

- Thanks.

- Thank you.

- All right, and thank you for joining us.

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