We need your participation! We invite all community members to share their (personal or professional) knowledge and experience in community mental health and substance use needs, challenges, and opportunities throughout the County of San Diego. The Behavioral Health Services (BHS) department is leading an ongoing, collaborative effort with justice partners, hospitals, community health centers, and other community-based providers to enhance, expand, and transform the range of behavioral health programs available throughout the San Diego region. The UCSD Health Partnership is facilitating a process for generating comprehensive, meaningful, community-centered input to inform the BHS system’s planning and decision-making, with the downstream goal of behavioral health equity for all. This interactive session will center on a series of guided conversations with the goal of  identifying community strengths and challenges. In addition, we aim to identify opportunities for enhanced collaboration and collectively strategize how to improve awareness of resources, community literacy, and ultimately use of programs and services. The community input process results in a synthesized work to develop a set of recommendations to BHS to better address mental health and substance use challenges faced by the community members throughout the County, particularly historically underserved, under-resourced, and hard-to-reach populations.

Learning Objectives:
1. Engage in an interactive session to best highlight community strengths and needs regarding mental health and substance use.
2. Initiate conversations to create countywide mechanisms, including the community in ways the community prefers, to continue the critical conversation of supporting mental health, preventing substance misuse, and improving behavioral health equity.