One of the most important jobs we have at the Department of Community & Human Services (DCHS) is to connect communities to critical services, including mental health care and wellness. That means making sure King County residents can get the treatment and care they need when they need it and how they need it.
Everyone deserves to be healthy, happy, and connected to community. To make sure we’re responsive to the diverse needs of King County communities, we value community input.
Through the Be Heard Listening Project, the department’s Behavioral Health and Recovery Division teamed up with 14 culturally based and community-centered organizations to engage communities frequently left out of mental health and wellness conversations, including BIPOC, immigrant, and refugee communities.
Over the course of 106 listening sessions, 543 individuals shared their stories, struggles, and solutions. Throughout, participants showed what an equitable mental health care system could look like. Many stressed the urgent need for services that are culturally responsive, developed by and for their community, and provided by individuals from similar cultures. These recommendations will help inform future behavioral health work at DCHS, including MIDD, a behavioral health sales tax that invests in expanding access to treatment.
Learn about the top 10 themes communities raised during listening sessions, also in 14 different languages at the bottom of the blog. To read the full report, click here.
Want to find out more? Watch this video where Be Heard community organizations reflect on how the project helped communities open up about their mental health care needs.
