NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)— Thursday, September 15, District A Councilman Joe Giarrusso will convene more than a dozen mental health stakeholders to help identify and fill gaps in mental health care access across the city.
According to Giarrusso, “Today is 10 years ago since we lost my dad to suicide and we’ve been thinking about how do we use an opportunity about mental health.”
Giarrusso says that his father’s death prompted him to become a mental health advocate. Thursday’s summit at the council will include 15 different mental health partners covering three basic facets of care, “We will cover trauma care, child care, and adult care and then the last presentation will be by the United Way, which will talk about trying to build out an continuum.”
Michael Williamson, United Way President and CEO stated, “There’s a strong interest to collaborate on a larger scale, but I don’t want to discount the fact that there have been a number of efforts throughout the community to tackle these issues. We’re offering to do that in a coordinated way.”