from touchstone mental health
Kind Words Volume 9 Issue 2 summer 2009
Dear Friends,
Inside this issue Letter from Director
1
New Integrated Service
2
Consumer Expressions & Art 3 Midwest Shelby Club
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Healthy Foods
4
Donor Thank You
5
Program Wish List
5
Team Touchstone
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2 8 2 9 u n iv e r s i t y av e n u e s e suite 400 minneapolis mn 55414-3230
With the exciting news we have to share, I wanted to include a letter in this quarter’s newsletter. First and foremost, on behalf of everyone at Touchstone, thank you for all you do to support our mission of inspiring hope, healing and well-being. We are lucky to have such supportive and collaborative community, family and professional partners who help make Touchstone Mental Health the innovative mental health provider we are today. Your support allows us to investigate and initiate new approaches of care while maintaining the highest level of service in our long-standing programs. Over the past two years, a team of Touchstone staff, clients and community partners have spent hundreds of hours researching, administering focus groups and implementing planning sessions to define what a Customized Living & Health and Wellness Center Community could look and feel like. Through this effort we have found ways to incorporate neurosciencific research and healing environment design elements to create architectural guidelines that will enable a building to reduce isolation, nurture the senses, reduce environmental stressors and promote healthy lifestyles while maintaining safety and privacy. We are extremely excited about these findings and what they can mean for the health and well-being of adults with serious mental illness.
We are taking these findings and integrating them into the design of Touchstone Mental Health’s future 40, one-bedroom unit customized living building in the Seward neighborhood in south Minneapolis. When construction is completed, our new home will also include Minnesota’s first
health and wellness center focused primarily on improving the physical, emotional, mental, social and spiritual health of adults with serious mental illness. Our intent is to positively impact the life expectancy disparity among adults with serious mental illness by developing, and assisting with the implementation of, individual integrated health and wellness plans that reduce the rate of chronic diseases including heart disease and diabetes.
Our facility would not be possible without the support of our partners Projects for Pride in Living (PPL), UrbanWorks Architecture, Hennepin County Adult Behavioral Health and the Seward Neighborhood. There is a tremendous amount of information, including architectural renderings, which we will share in the coming months; but we wanted you to know of this exciting milestone in Touchstone’s 27+ year history. Again, I can’t express enough thanks to all of our community partners throughout all of our programs who have made it possible for Touchstone Mental Health to venture down this new path. I look forward to sharing updates with you regarding our long-standing programs and our newest adventures. Be well,
Martha Lantz Executive Director