The county held its first-ever Critical Response and Readiness Conference, collaborating with Trillium, Coastal Horizons, and the New Hanover County Resilience Task Force.
Teachers, school resource officers, mental health therapists, mediation specialists (formerly known as violence interrupters), and program coordinators all attended. The goal was to train public service professionals in various strategies and methods to effectively respond to moments of crisis.
Lately, the county has been dealing with those crises — like substance use disorders and high suicide rates. But Bo Dean with the county said it’s not just a recent problem.
“We heard data this morning to start this conference about the high suicide rate, what's happening with substance use disorder, we know what's happening with our mental health. And it’s not even COVID. I mean, in our community, we've been talking about this since Florence,” he said.
In addition to the event, the county launched its newly developed Community Resource Portal, an online guide for people seeking resources related to mental health, substance use, housing, food insecurity, and other emergency assistance in New Hanover County.
Dean notes that it simplifies the process of getting people the help they need.
“And now at the click of a button, you're able to go to this portal, and all of those resources are there. So you can search this and you're able to find all these resources in one place,” he said.
The site breaks down providers into the categories of service, provides information on how to connect, and even maps out geographically where they are located.
The Community Resource Portal site can be found here.
