Hopes for Continuation, Expansion & Implementation
As the interviews concluded, participants were asked if there was anything else from their experience in the Roundtable that they might want to add. Several Roundtable participants expressed gratitude for the program and commended DMH for making the effort. They saw the program as valuable and worth their time. As this MH staff said,
We’re willing to put aside a couple hours a month and say, “This is really worth it. There’s something to be gained here.” And that says a lot, because everyone there is overworked. I’m not the only one. Whether it’s clergy or mental health, we all have a lot on our plate. We’re all juggling a lot. We all want to see people feel better and live better lives. So for us, it’s worth it to show up. And I hope it’s something that continues. I hope that they don’t end it after the one year.
Many others not only expressed a desire for the Roundtable to continue, but to expand and actually carry out the vision of collaborative care. One MH staff says that he hopes that they’re able to “expand upon this and maybe implement a lot of the things that we’ve talked about, to put action behind some of the words and ideas that we’ve expressed.” Similarly, a clergyperson is looking toward taking the next step toward putting all of their discussions into action. He says, “I hope in the future that they will continue to go to the next level and take it a step further and to actually implement a working manifestation of all their efforts and their information-gathering to put it into actual use.”
Finally, this MH staff person would like to see the Roundtables expand both in number of Roundtables and the number of people participating. She says, “We’ve already unanimously decided we want to continue. We want to open it up, have more people participating.”
