Esperanza Center moves to San Benito Street; offerse early help
for those with mental illness
The Behavioral Health Department hosted a mental health forum
Dec. 18 with a guest speaker who has a first-person view of what it
is like to struggle with mental illness.
Esperanza Center moves to San Benito Street; offerse early help for those with mental illness
The Behavioral Health Department hosted a mental health forum Dec. 18 with a guest speaker who has a first-person view of what it is like to struggle with mental illness.
Alan Yamamoto, the executive director of Behavioral Health in San Benito County, first talked about the importance of state funding that has been directed to service such programs as those offered at the Esperanza Center, which is now located at 544 San Benito St.
The center is funded using a 1 percent tax on the income of persons who claim $1 million or more, and was enacted by Proposition 63 in 2004. The money has been used to fund the Esperanza Center, as well as several prevention and intervention programs in the county.
“It puts more money into a different way [of doing things,]” Yamamoto said. “The fail-first [method] was devoted to people with the most serious mental illness. There were no prevention dollars or policy directed at that.”
It is the method that led Daniel Anderson, the brother of local Andi Anderson, to suffer a breakdown before seeking help. Though Anderson’s memory is spotty from some years of his early mental illness his family recalls him as resistant to treatment.
Anderson, who was originally diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic nearly two years ago, talked with members of the behavioral health staff and community members for nearly an hour about his experiences.
Anderson was serving with the National Guard when he started to hear voices and see what he described as ghosts. He had vivid dreams and he thought someone was out to get him. While he was taking college courses, he said he told his counselors what was going on and they suggested he go to a hospital for evaluation in Maryland, where he lived. He was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and was placed in a mental hospital, where he began treatment with medication and group therapy. It would take another trip to the hospital and a program devoted to helping him get back on his feet before he would start his recovery.
“It’s very hard to separate what is real from what is not real,” he said.
Way Station, a Maryland nonprofit, provided day services to Anderson, helped him get housing and built his confidence up, he said.
“I was going to be discarded as homeless,” he said, after his second release from a hospital. “They assisted me in completing my education and I was able to get independent housing.”
One of the key components of the program, Anderson said, was that the activities provided and the staff helped build up his confidence enough that he could go back to college. At first, he enrolled in one class, then two classes a semester. A job coach helped him get a part-time job where he disassembles computer equipment for recycling.
“The job coach helped me get organized and provides emotional support,” Anderson said. “He jokes if he gets rid of me, he’ll have to hire three people to replace me.”
It has been a slow road, said Anderson, who acknowledged that it was three years before he was able to re-enroll in classes. He will finish his community college courses in May and has plans to transfer for his bachelor’s degree. He talks of his hopes of working as an assistant in television, and perhaps, someday, of being an independent filmmaker.
It took two years to get a mix of medications that work well for Anderson.
“I have a good concoction, but I never want to go off the meds because I never want to go to the hospital again,” he said.
After he talked about his experience, Anderson took questions from local staff members, including how to handle patients who do not want to take medication.
“Sometimes you have to force them,” he said. “Use mind tricks, like a Jedi, or give them a reward. Every client is different. You have to work with them a while to understand what makes them tick.”
Anderson now has a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder – bipolar, meaning that he has mood swings from manic to depressive in addition to his other symptoms. With his medication, he does not have hallucinations, but he said he still has vivid dreams.
“It was a process that got me there, with medication,” he said.
Yamamoto said he and his staff are helping local clients through the process, especially at the Esperanza Center. When the center opened up on Fifth Street, it was designed to cater to clients who were least likely to seek out help on their own – teens and young adults, homeless residents, Spanish speakers and others, according to staff at an open house last year.
The Esperanza Center is open Monday through Friday, and caters to adolescents from 1 to 5 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays; adults from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays, and with clients from both groups on Fridays. The average number of clients that sign in on a day is 15 to 20, and the center offers structured activities, classes and group sessions.
“It doesn’t have the feeling of a clinic,” Yamamoto said. “When [clients] are resistant, they can come in on a more casual basis.”
He talked about how some of Anderson’s words reflect the way many clients feel.
“That experience – that sense of denial and distrust – they have all of that,” Yamamoto said. “With many people, it allows us to interact. One thing we see is more consistency.”
The center offers services, but also has activities such as a pool table and other things.
“We need to allow people to move along at their own pace,” he said. “A big component is case management, connecting with other resources just like our speaker [discussed.]”
In addition to funding the Esperanza Center in Hollister, Yamamoto said some of the money from Prop. 63 has been funneled into programs for prevention and intervention.
“It’s a recent shift to set aside a portion of the money to share in the community with other agencies that don’t treat the seriously mentally ill,” Yamamoto said.
Some of the agencies to receive money include Hollister Youth Alliance and the Suicide Prevention Service of the Central Coast, which provides what Yamamoto referred to as a “warm line” for people who need to talk to someone (877-ONE-LIFE or 877-663-5433). The department will also be contracting with an agency to provide counseling services for people involved in domestic violence, specifically victims who may experience post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Having the emotional support of a therapist early on can prevent post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression,” Yamamoto said.
