New report identifies OKC’s most urgent mental health challenges

An in-depth assessment of Oklahoma City’s needs around mental health and substance use found serious challenges in the community’s behavioral health system, including a lack of intensive services for people with serious mental illness, inadequate supports for children and youth, and an overreliance on inappropriate settings of care like emergency rooms for mental health crises.

Now, OKC’s mental health leadership team will use these findings as a guide to select and implement the evidence-based interventions OKC needs to add to its array of mental health and substance use services to better meet residents’ needs across the lifespan.

The assessment, conducted by Healthy Minds Policy Initiative, calls for strategic investments and planning in five core areas:

Removing structural and systemic barriers to care

• In parts of OKC where risk for mental health problems is highest, we see some of the worst access to safety-net mental health providers.
• The city isn’t designed around equitable access to safe, communal spaces: 38% of schools are located within two-thirds of a mile from places that sell alcohol, but about a third are more than two miles from the nearest public park.

Diverting residents to appropriate settings of care

• More people go to the ER for mental health crises than to urgent recovery or crisis centers, despite promising new resources for a community-based crisis response.