This week we’d like to share an update on the Building Healthy Military Communities Program in Florida. This update is a guest post from BHMC State Coordinator, Lynn Brannon. Thanks Lynn for sharing your progress!
We have been very busy in Florida. BHMC has joined the Suicide Prevention working group through Department of Children and families. Through this working group I have collaborated with many organizations on the State level. The focus of this group is to decrease the suicide rate in military, veterans and their families.
BHMC is collaborating with many local organizations such as USO, YMCA, Baptist Health, UF Cooperative Extension Offices, 4-H, Creation Health, FLNG Family Assistant Centers, and others to put on a 3 location Back to School Bash for Guard, Reserve and Active Duty in Northeast Florida August 5th. BHMC has provided training to the Florida Alcohol and Drug Abuse Associate. BHMC put together a WebEx training to explain BHMC in Florida and to also discuss some of the gaps in service that were identified in a Behavioral Health Care survey completed in December 2016.
Next month BHMC will hold a workshop at the National Behavioral Health Care Conference in Orlando. BHMC’s workshop will have panel members from the Florida National Guard to answer questions about the needs of Military, Veterans and their Families and to assist with understanding the military population and behavioral health.
In June I was able to go to Minnesota to see how their Beyond the Yellow Ribbon program was established. It is a fantastic example of how to build community capacity and sustain it. We are going to DC this week to work on our State’s strategic plan and I look forward to working on community capacity building in Florida when I return.
We have had a Family Programs volunteer assist BHMC with scheduling a community network meeting in Miramar, FL where we have invited, City Manager’s, Police Dept, Fire Dept, Mission United and Commissioners among others. The goal of this meeting is to discuss BHMC in the State and to present Florida’s community capacity building plan.
We have made some valuable connections with a program through Humana called Bold Goal. Bold Goal is in different locations in Florida and each location has identified areas to concentrate on. The goal of this program is to raise the health of their areas 20% by 2020. Jacksonville’s Bold Goal concentrates on Behavioral Health and Diabetes. Tampa’s Bold Goal concentrates on Behavioral Health and Food Insecurity. BHMC and Military OneSource has had the opportunity to brief these Bold Goal organizations and their working groups. This is a great partnership as we move forward in our state.
This is our update from Florida. We look forward to more progress as we build our State’s plan and begin implementation of that plan.
Other information & resources:
To Access the WebEx recording regarding Behavioral Health, click here.
Also check out the information about the upcoming event sponsored by BHMC Florida, Back to School Bash!
For more information about the BHMC program in Florida, contact Lynn Brannon:
lynn.b.brannon.ctr@mail.mil
