A new non profit in Sacramento is helping children who are struggling with mental health issues. Not just the children, but their families, all their loved ones and any clinicians, experts, or other resources working with them.
The program at My EARS 2 Hear is an elaborate coordination effort to assist families isolated, alone and overwhelmed while looking for answers and doctors to help.
The non profit is unique to Sacramento.
“As a parent with children with special needs, I have felt desperate so many times in our journey to find help. It is so very, very hard to connect with the right resources to find ways to help them. As I have worked and tried to do that for my own kids I have seen the complete lack of help and the huge need that’s out there to help families,” says Laraine Hutcherson Executive Director of My EARS 2 Hear. Hutcherson, who has two children with mental health disorders says, “I know families feel desperate like I do.”
She has been there. Searching and waiting for help and answers. My EARS 2 Hear will do the work for parents just like her.
My EARS 2 Hear will work with families to connect them with the programs, services and doctors they need. Parents will have a parent liaison.
“We’ll talk to the family. Find out what their concerns are. What their needs are. We’re going to come in and say, ‘OK. Let us do some of that research. Let us help you connect to some of these facilities. Let us call them and find out if they can help you,” Hutcherson explains.
“We make phone calls. We contact their particular insurance carrier. We’ll help them with paperwork. We’ll show up to doctor’s appointments. We’ll be there in that process.”
Hutcherson says finding a diagnosis can be a lonely and frightening time.
“It can take months to find, get evaluated for, get approved for certain types of services. Those are months where kids need help.”
It is also during this time she says parents should be focusing on their children and that especially during this time parents being present is what matters the most “rather than desperately searching the internet or calling and on hold with insurance companies for hours as everybody fights over what’s covered and what’s not.”
My EARS 2 Hear is ready to help families now but is also looking for seed money for a new medical facility in Sacramento. In line with the My EARS 2 Hear mission, at this facility families can receive services right away.
“What we foresee is a medical facility that will offer a variety of services. Wether is psychology, psychiatry, other counseling services, medical services, occupational therapy services. A variety of services where families can come in and get immediate treatment,” explains Hutcherson with a vision that families will bear no cost.
Hutcherson recalls searching for help for her children who were struggling.
“Through my own journey I’ve had many moments where I’ve just broken down and just cried because what we were doing at that time just wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough because I knew under the current circumstances my kid wasn’t going to be successful.”
My EARS 2 Hear is a light, a movement, a place for families and children struggling with mental health issues to more easily find the roads to health, diagnosis, treatment and success.
For more information about My EARS 2 Hear or how you can donate, click here.