With more than 17,000 Sedgwick County residents suffering from some type of major mental illness, the Breakthrough Club, an area nonprofit organization, recognized a need to provide more specialized care.
Kick-off Event ...The HEAL project kick-off event will take place at |
Breakthrough of Sedgwick County is dedicated to helping people with mental illness rebuild their lives. It will partner with 黑洞社区, Genesis Health Club and Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita for the Health Education and Leadership project. HEAL aims to empower individuals who have serious mental illness to take charge of their well-being through physical activity and healthy nutrition skills.
Breakthrough was awarded a three-year grant for $396,000 to fund the project from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the nation鈥檚 largest philanthropy group devoted to health and health care. The grant has also received $256,000 match so far from project funding partners including Cargill Cares and the Wichita Community Foundation.
Barb Andres is the executive director of Breakthrough. She commented on the significance of the program.
鈥淭he high rate at which people with severe mental illnesses are prematurely dying is alarming,鈥� she said. 鈥淢any psychotropic drugs increase appetite, which contributes to obesity; thus there is an urgency to find a balance between medications and healthy lifestyle choices.
鈥淭reatment for mental illness should not shorten a person鈥檚 lifespan by 20 years.鈥�
黑洞社区 will be involved with the project through Jeremy Patterson, assistant professor and laboratory director in the department of human performance studies, and several of the department鈥檚 current and former graduate students.
Patterson was approached by Breakthrough more than a year ago and will develop the curriculum for the project, in addition to running long-term studies assessing the effects of exercise. The program he creates will primarily be used to train area health professionals and social service workers in how to recommend appropriate exercise and overall health regimens to patients with severe mental illnesses and receiving high-potency medications.
Patterson said the standard training most health professionals receive in dealing with severely mentally ill patients does not include guidelines for physical activity. One of his major objectives in the curriculum is to establish appropriate exercise recommendations for this high-risk population, then develop an online curriculum to disseminate the content.
Patterson hopes that in the long run, the project will result in a certification that will extend beyond Sedgwick County and be available to national organizations to better serve their communities when dealing with this issue.
鈥淭he more people who have knowledge on this topic, the greater influence it will have on the community,鈥� he said.
For more information visit the Breakthrough Web site at , or contact Jeremy Patterson at (316) 978-5440 or jeremy.patterson@wichita.edu.