Mental Health Matters - Chippewa & Eau Claire Counties

Over the last eight years, the coalition has worked to implement research-based strategies to build protective factors - social connections, caring relationships, and meaningful participation - that lead to resilience and positive youth mental health in general. At the core of these strategies was the idea that in order to treat youth depression at scale, one must build foundational practices that focus on protective factors rather than treating risk factors alone. To do so, MHM gathered leaders from local government entities, educational bodies, healthcare, community-based, and faith-based organizations representing multiple member agencies.

The coalition’s broad reach was strategic, allowing it to develop workgroups that capitalized on each sector’s expertise and unique experiences working directly with youth to drive strategic transformation of policy and systems to improve youth behavioral health outcomes in the region. By taking a collective impact approach, MHM partners established a high level of trust among one another under a common agenda, aligned efforts, and shared measures to track progress. Direction from a team who served as the coalition’s backbone aligned and coordinated initiatives among various workgroups with specific project roles and responsibilities in a way that integrated their work to maximize end results.