Continuing progress on mental health builds better society

On Monday, the Recovery & Wellness Consortium comprising eight counties, including Barron, gathered to celebrate the progress it's making to provide accessible, high-quality mental health and substance abuse services.

The hard, cold truth is that you reading this either suffer from a mental illness and/or drug abuse or you know someone who does.

That's why we can't stress enough the importance of Monday's gathering and the continued effort of neighboring counties working together to share resources and funding to provide those needed services.

Not too long ago, Barron County's only resource for long-term hospitalization for those concerns came from Cumberland Memorial Hospital. When that was discontinued, meeting those needs with the resources remaining became paramount. The forming of the consortium

3 years ago helps tackle that very issue.

Instead of a "Yours is yours and mine is mine," attitude, Barron, Buffalo, Chippewa, Dunn, Pepin, Pierce, Polk and Rusk counties have vowed to work together to making sure that one day anyone suffering from such debilitating diseases can get the help they need and deserve.

Monday's gathering of dedicated public providers of mental health and substance abuse services created a bright spot in an area of society that must times seem hopeless. It was clear that if there is to be any hope had in providing person-centered, community-based services for citizens with mental health and/or substance abuse needs, it is as a united front.

The editorials are the views of the newspaper as determined by The Chronotype's editorial board. All editorials are written by one or more members of the board, which consists of Jim Dorrance, Sam Finazzo, Ryan Urban and Eileen Nimm.