BCF grants boost local programs

A local philanthropic foundation formed last year has issued $115,000 to local agencies in its first round of grants, including a combined $60,000 toward improving mental health counseling and treatment.

Also awarding grants to benefit education, workforce training and coastal awareness, the Bayou Community Foundation allocated $40,000 to support a mobile outreach program for outpatient mental health counseling and treatment, and $20,000 to seed a child psychiatry program.

BCF Board Chair Alexis Duval said the grants are expected to be “the first in a long line of investments in our cherished bayou region,” likely on an annual basis.

The South Central Louisiana Human Services Authority is the recipient of $40,000. The funds will be used to support a mobile outreach program offering mental health counseling and treatment, paying for supplies, gasoline, regular maintenance and staff salaries, said Lisa Schilling, the state agency’s executive director.

Patients treated by the $300,000, 40-foot-long mobile unit receive care similar to a normal clinical setting. It has two evaluation rooms and employs psychiatrists and nurses. SCLHSA has treatment centers in Houma, LaPlace, Morgan City and Raceland.

“Because of the fact that most of the clients that we serve are underinsured and have problems with transportation, trying to get to their appointments, we’re trying to go into the community to reach them in their home setting, so to speak,” said Schilling, who added that the mobile unit will be deployed to the lower-lying areas of Lafourche and Terrebonne, where it will potentially treat 3-5,000 clients.

The unit was purchased with BP grant money stemming from the 2010 Macondo well blowout. It was piloted in Assumption Parish. “We have very few no-shows,” Schilling said.

Patients who are unable to make their appointments to the traditional centers often ignore their treatment instructions, Schilling added.

“They become noncompliant with their treatment regiment, specifically with their medication regiment,” Schilling said. “Noncompliance is what causes the biggest problems that we see with our patients. They stop taking their medications, then they start to have behavioral issues that come into play. Sometimes that can lead to violence or homicidal-suicidal thoughts.”

BCF released a community needs assessment in January, on which the initial round of grants is based. “The most critical need identified in the Bayou Region was treatment and counseling services for the mentally ill and substance abusers,” it reads.

Schilling agreed, saying the mobile unit makes care possible and convenient for some at a time when state and federal support is dwindling.

“(The need is) becoming even greater with (government funding) cuts to health-care services, not only for behavioral health, but for health care in general, not only in our state, but across the nation,” she said.

State lawmakers created SCLHSA in 2006 to serve seven parishes: Assumption, Lafourche, St. Charles, St. James, St. John the Baptist, St. Mary and Terrebonne.

Options for Independence, a nonprofit agency that assists people with disabilities, will receive $20,000 to initiate a child psychiatry program.

The other grant recipients were:

– The Nicholls State University Foundation and Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program – $20,000 to repair the Nicholls Farm Bridge to provide vehicular access to the coastal plan production pond and to conduct a volunteer planting event at Grand Isle State Park or Elmer’s Island

– The Lafourche Parish School Board – $10,000 to purchase welding equipment for classrooms at Central and South Lafourche high schools, to be later used at the Career Magnet Center

– The Fletcher Technical Community College Foundation and South Central Industrial Association – $10,000 to fund components of the Work It! Louisiana program, which aims to raise awareness of industrial career paths among high-school students

– The Terrebonne Foundation for Academic Excellence – $10,000 to expand the Dolly Parton Imagination Library in Terrebonne Parish, a literacy program for children ranging from newborns to 5-year-olds

– The South Louisiana Wetlands Discovery Center – $5,000 to fund wetlands awareness programs for youth, such as the Wetland Youth Summit, World Wetlands Day, Mandalay Trail Excursions and summer programs

BCF, which focuses on Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes and Grand Isle, was formed last spring with $70,000 in donations from Charlotte Bollinger, J.J. Buquet, Arlen “Benny” Cenac, Al Danos, Alexis and Berwick Duval and Phyllis Taylor.

BCF is a donor-advised fund of the Greater New Orleans Foundation, which donated $10,000 to the foundation.

The Gheens Foundation awarded BCF a five-year $500,000 grant to help build a permanent grant-making fund. This money is handed down annually, and BCF must eventually match it with $1 million in private contributions to receive the full allotment.

In its community needs assessment, BCF identified several causes to support, including early childhood programming, care of the elderly and at-risk youth, workforce development, coastal preservation, rural access to health care, animal welfare and conducting a study to determine the size of a facility to replace the overcrowded Lafourche Parish Detention Center.

“We wanted our contributions to follow the assessments that we discovered, and that’s what we feel we’ve done,” Duval said. “We wanted to hit all three areas of primary interest: mental health, education and coastal issues.”