Updates and Improvements to Clinic Services

Dear Wilder Community Mental Health & Wellness Clients and Families,

Between September 2023 and July 2024, we held a series of listening sessions with Community Mental Health and Wellness clients and/or family members to inform how we continue to improve our services in order to meet the needs of our community.  I talked to many of you about what is going well, what is not going well or what we should change, and what needs you or your family members are experiencing that no one is addressing.

I was able to talk to about ten percent of our total population served, and many of you were very open about what we do well, what we could do better, and challenges you, family members, or the community are encountering that no one is addressing. I am so deeply grateful for your feedback, which has now been shared with our teams.  I want to let you and our community know how your feedback was used to improve our services.  It has been extremely important to our entire team that we hear from you, that we develop a response, and that we share back to you where we took or are taking action. We also appreciate all the accolades you gave our staff in your feedback.  As a leader, I feel heartened to know that you also get to experience the deeply compassionate and skilled staff we have here at Wilder. 

In addition to our annual listening sessions, we conduct monthly satisfaction surveys, provided in the language of choice for your family.  That information is also used to inform how we improve our services.

More Service Availability

• We have expanded our walk-in hours at our outpatient clinic Monday through Friday, to better accommodate a variety of schedules. 
• We added evening hours to our outpatient clinic two nights per week, making it easier for working families to access services.
• We now have direct and same-day access to primary care at a partner clinic, available to any Wilder client.
• In our substance use services, we have expanded time and level of care to  better fit client’s needs.  We have also expanded our capacity to serve more people in more languages.

Better Support for Clients and Families

• We revamped our workflow so that every individual or family has a return appointment scheduled with their permanent service provider following their intake and evaluation with us. 
• We have vastly expanded our therapist roles and family, mental health, and recovery peer services in order to increase our supports to individuals and families. 
• We expanded our care coordination team so that our care coordinators can focus on helping clients and families access internal and external resources and supports for their families. 
• Families from many of our outpatient and school-based programs expressed wanting more parenting support/education groups.  We have a team of providers going through additional parenting training and will begin to offer more groups and therapy tailored to family needs.

Culturally-Inclusive and Community-Driven

• We were able to increase the budget and are reorganizing some of our program offerings in different service lines to include more culturally-based activities and food, and to ensure there is a continual feedback loop for clients to inform programming.
• Expanded substance use services’ capacity to serve more people in more languages.
• In our SUD program, we are refining and will make available in different languages some of our processes around drug testing in order to continue to offer clarity to clients. We are also completing a culturally-based curriculum that many staff and clients have given feedback on and will start implementation this year.
• We are partnering with the county to have county staff available onsite several times a month to assist with resources for basic needs.
• We now have a MNsure navigator to assist clients, families, and community members with insurance applications and enrollment. 

Safer and Clearer Services

• We added a step bar to our Wilder vehicle used to transport many elders, to increase safety.
• For one of our team-based service lines, because everyone on the team plays a different role in supporting clients and families, we are working on updating our information with photos and staff functions in order to easily identify individual team member roles.
• We refined our internal referral for psychological testing to ensure that providers and individuals waiting for the completion of assessments are receiving consultation and support from our psychology team.
• We are working on bringing more vocational supports as part of our services through different staff roles and community partnerships. 

In addition to these responses to your collective feedback, as I met many individuals and families being served by our Community Mental Health and Wellness team, we identified specific challenges you were having that we were able to resolve.  It was a pleasure to get your calls and messages sharing that we were able to figure something out for you or your family! 

As an organization, we know that we do some things very well, and that there is always room for improvement.  I am grateful for the many individuals and families who allow me into their lives annually and share with me what you appreciate, and what we need to do better, and look forward to future discussions.

If you were somehow missed as we did our listening sessions, or even if you were present but have more feedback, please don’t hesitate to contact me at pahoua.yang@wilder.org or 651-280-2145.  Your voice is valuable, we hear you, and will continue to strive to incorporate your feedback. 

Until our next listening session,

Pahoua K. Yang, 
Vice President, Community Mental Health and Wellness