Acceptable and accessible mental health care offered at Here Tomorrow

Here Tomorrow’s mission, which opens in late 2021, is to transform lives by building a community where mental health care is acceptable and accessible. In other words, the stigma has been eliminated from their program.

In Florida, suicides have nearly doubled over the past 20 years. In addition, the rates in Duval and St. Johns counties are higher than the national average.

It defies the logic that people with a medical condition can stay in the hospital for as long as necessary, while those with a mental disorder are limited to 72 hours. From first-hand experience, we can tell you that time is not enough and timely follow-up care is simply not available, which often proves disastrous.

Barriers to mental health care include waiting lists, insurance issues, and a national shortage of mental health practitioners. The Here Tomorrow people can provide same-day support, which is a response time that can make the difference in success or failure. In addition, many services are free.

But the key to the success of this organization is the staff.

Services are provided by highly trained and certified peer support professionals. Many of them are people with “live experience” who understand what others are going through in crisis, because they’ve been there themselves.