UPDATE: County is first pilot site for ROCKit grant
By Terry Murry on Monday, April 26th, 2021 in Columbia Basin News More Top Stories
WE have learned more about the ROCKit grant. First and foremost, it was not a grant received by Umatilla County. Instead it was a grant received from the Morris-Singer Foundation to the organization X4 Health. That organization specializes in social impact design.
X4 Health selected Umatilla County as the first of three pilot sites to work on mental health issues and answers.
“We designed the model, provide the tools, facilitate the process and then ensure the community can either continue or replicate the process as they desire,” Christine Bechtel of X4 Health wrote.
The Morris-Singer Foundation, based in Boston, focuses on health and a healthy democracy.
Bechtel is the president and chief strategist for X4 Health, which strives for better health, better care, lower costs, and better experiences for patients and professionals.
Editor’s note: the story below is generally correct about the issues that are being explored, but not correct in the facts of the funding. The story above clarifies that the grant was not for the county, it was awarded to X4 Health which selected Umatilla County to be the first of three test sites to explore responding to the mental health crisis.
PENDLETON – Umatilla County is the first in the nation to be awarded a ROCKit grant about which little is being made public. The county is using the funding to dive deep into the issue of how best to address the mental health crisis.
While Board of Commissioners Chairman George Murdock can’t say much about the funding source, he did point out that a familiar face, former Athena Councilwoman Carol Speed, is involved.
“She’s our point of contact with this grant,” Murdock said. “Also, we have a professional team from all over the country that is working with us.”
Speed is now the executive administrator for Utah for Crisis Intervention Team International based in Salt Lake City.
There are 30 people from the county working on solutions to a number of issues involving mental health, and they already have at least three meetings under their belts. The size of the grant is also a mystery.
“I can only guess by the number of people who have been made available to help us that it was a fairly generous grant,” Murdock said.
The panel will not only work on improving or creating facilities and treatment availability in the county. Murdock said they are also considering developing mental health crisis intervention teams who could respond to emergencies, taking that burden off the shoulders of law enforcement.
