Barnabas Center was recently awarded a grant of $40,000 by The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida from The Partnership for Mental Health. The Partnership for Mental Health is a project of Baptist Health and the Delores Barr Weaver Fund at The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida.

Helping our Neighbors

The grant will help Barnabas provide mental health services to the uninsured adult patients of its health programs. For example, a health services patient was referred to Barnabas’ mental health counselor when she began to discuss her depression resulting from the death of her husband. She was unable to afford access to mental health counseling due to lack of insurance.

“The access and flexibility of the counseling I am receiving helped me immensely,” she said. “The ease of these sessions took away stress from my already stressful life. I hope this is a program that Barnabas can continue to offer. It is a great asset to the Nassau County community.”

Why the Partnership for Mental Health Grant Will Help

The patient mentioned above is just one of many who utilize the mental health counseling services offered at Barnabas. In particular, a recently released survey by the Jacksonville Nonprofit Hospital Partnership, reported 64% of respondents said mental health and mental health conditions top the list of 14 pressing community health needs. However, the current need for behavioral health services is great and seems more urgent in these difficult days. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Barnabas has been working at an accelerated pace to meet this demand for increased mental health services.

Barnabas’ mental health counselor said, “working at Barnabas has been fulfilling. It was especially fulfilling during the earlier stages of the COVID-19 quarantine. For some patients, I reminded them of the hope they previously had, and educated them on the correlation between their medical condition, patterns of behaviors and their mental health challenges. For others, it was about guiding them in developing new coping strategies.”

To learn more about Barnabas’ health services, contact Barnabas at (904) 261-7000. To learn more about The Partnership for Mental Health, click the button below: