Entrants's Name: Jeff Lamontagne

Country: United States

Field: Mental Health

Innovation - idea: We raise funds and contract with 50 licensed therapists, experienced working with suicidal youth and working at a reduced rate, to provide services to uninsured/underinsured youth at-risk for suicide. Government-funded mental health centers are underfunded so it can be weeks for suicidal youth to receive services, then for infrequent and limited sessions. We arrange 8-20 sessions within minutes.www.thesecondwindfund.org

Innovation - why it is pioneering: Typical school counselors are responsible for mental health needs, scheduling, and career/college choices of 400 youth. Suicidal youth do not get adequate attention or time from either counselors or state-funded systems that are supposed to serve the needs of the underinsured. Our program bypasses managed care for this neediest demographic, providing quick, frequent, high-quality services.

Strategy - how it achieves impact: Several features of our model allow us to achieve impact:

a) Our narrow focus allows us to provide exceptional services for this limited subpopulation--youth at-risk for suicide

b) Working with a large number of therapists all over metro Denver allows us to: a) ensure that each referred youth is near one of our providers; and b) ensure that the therapists do not "burn out" because of seeing too many clients at too-reduced rates

c) raising money privately allows us flexibility in our services

d) because of our narrow focus, we respond very quickly to calls from schools--there is little to no wait time

e) without most of the bureaucratic strictures of large-scale managed care, we are able to be flexible in treating youth

f) because we contract with private therapists and do not dictate courses of therapy, youth can see our providers as little or often as they need to--the courses of therapy are tailored to each specific situation

Strategy - growth plans: We have grown an annual fundraiser from 66 people to 1,900 people by convincing the community that youth suicide cuts across every demographic, thus bringing a variety of churches, businesses, civic groups, and individuals on board. Our event has grown by at least 40% every year, and we are getting more significant grant funding now too. We intend to grow across the nation, as we appear to be the only organization in the nation filling this specific gap. We have affiliates operating our program in Colorado Springs, Grand Junction, and Boulder (all within Colorado), but have also received requests from out-of-state organizations seeking to implement the program in other areas too. We want to assist the development of new affiliates throughout the country because we have seen evidence that it works. Our basic strategy is to find organizations in other cities willing to initiate Second Wind Funds in their local communities. We can provide seed money and technical assistance.

Impact to date: We have received nearly 700 youth referred through our program to date: 21 the first year; 32 the second; 111 the third; 164 the fourth, and approximately 360 this past school year. Every year, consistently 2/3 of the youth referred actually follow through and receive services. Of those that follow through, data collected indicates that approximately 90% show some improvement or significant improvement. Over 200 schools have utilized the program, and once a school counselor refers a student, he or she is apt to utilize it again and again. The rate of referrals is increasing all the time. No youth referred through our program has died by suicide.

As suggested above, others have replicated these services thoughout Colorado, with our assistance, and many others have begun considering doing so in other areas as well.

Future impact: For anyone with with non-urgent mental health needs, waiting a while for infrequent and limited sessions is troubling; for suicidal youth, it is entirely unacceptable. Our impact will be that for youth in this category--suicidal and underinsured--there will be a different set of rules and/or greater funding, available through our program or other sources. At the present time, schools have quickly begun to see Second Wind not as an alternative but as a first choice because of our speed, number of sessions offered, and the fact that we always have a licensed therapist ready to see clients. With our program, school counselors can see how totally inadequate the previous system was. In 10 years, youth considering taking their own lives will be able to quickly access professional counseling services nationwide--through Second Wind or through other services that have evolved similarly--despite their poor financial situation not of their own making.

Sustainability - resource base: Our annual fundraiser involves nearly 300 volunteers to create a non-threating and fun, but educational environment for our participants. Our fundraiser this past year included 800 youth among the 1,900 participants, as well as faith community teams, business teams, civic-club teams.

Our therapists work at reduced fees--reduced enough to stretch our funds farther but not so reduced that our provider list suffers a lot of turnover.

We receive in-kind donations for office space, on the therapists' fees, food for our event, accounting and payroll services, and for other services and goods.

We partner not only with business, churches, and civic clubs for our annual event, but also with local mental health centers so that youth referred to either Second Wind or to one of those centers can take advantage of the resources that the other organization(s) have to offer--such as therapists with certain specialties on our side, or access to medications through their organizations.

Major challenge for the field: A major challenge for the field is fighting the stigma around mental health issues. Such stigma makes it difficult to fund mental health on either a political/governmental level, or through private means. We've been very aggressive, and fortunate in some respects. Not every community can or wants to commit such resources to mental health, especially when suicide is perceived as "for the weak."

Contact Information:

Name: Mr. Jeff Lamontagne - Co-Founder and Executive Director
Country: United States
Website: www.thesecondwindfund.org

Bio: My background is in environmental law. I have a Natural Resources degree from Cornell University and a law degree from the College of William and Mary. There were four suicides at my community's high school in the 2001-2002 school. I did not know any of the kids, but two friends and I decided to make a community gesture by holding an event to benefit the school. Our small crowd raised only $4,000 in 2002, but we worked with the school to determine that we'd pay for counseling for uninsured or underinsured kids at-risk for suicide. The $4,000 was only going to help a handful of kids, but when we began receiving requests from other schools and cities to expand the services to their communities, we decided to try to raise more funds. Soon enough, it became clear that the system for funding mental health for suicidal youth was inadequate, and we decided to begin operating on a larger scale. After two years of leading the effort as a volunteer, I left my prior job with an environmental consulting firm and went part-time and incorporated the Second Wind Fund. Other than some entrepreneurial projects in college, this is my first serious endeavor as an entrepreneur--and I can hardly imagine a better experience or more important work. We have truly filled a valued niche.

[Please note that I am working from a computer where I do not have access to files that I can upload; however, most relevant information or documents can be viewed on our website]