Common Ground Health joined Assemblywoman Sarah Clark, the office of Senator Samra G. Brouk, and area health leaders on Thursday, February 12, to turn our recently published Behavioral Health Needs Assessment (BHNA) into coordinated next steps for our region. The convening brought together top representatives from community organizations, health systems, and government to align near-term priorities named in the assessment and to build shared ownership for implementation. The program included opening remarks, a presentation of findings, and small‑group working sessions to identify priority actions.
Assemblywoman Clark and Senator Brouk, who chairs the Senate Mental Health Committee, commissioned the needs assessment and gathered partners including Hillside Family of Agencies, Rochester City School District, and BIPOC PEEEEEEK. Also taking part were The Greater Rochester Health Foundation, which co‑funded the assessment, and Goodwill of the Finger Lakes, which runs the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline—an essential, trusted entry point to care for our neighbors.
Assemblywoman Clark spoke as both policymaker and parent. “Mental health concerns are far too often what I hear the most about across our community. This new assessment gives us something we have not had before: a clear, community-driven picture of where our behavioral health system is falling short and where we must do better.” She spoke about a family member’s challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic and the care he received that has allowed him to support his mental health. Clark also challenged us to meet the moment in school settings and to free up funding so that funds could be used where and how they could be most effective.
Senator Brouk, who couldn’t attend the event, emphasized grounding state action in local reality in a written statement: “Our action on the state level must be informed and guided by local needs, and this convening brings key community members to the table to understand gaps in the system and identify real, working solutions to help our neighbors heal and thrive.”
Holly Sienkiewicz, director of research at Common Ground Health, presented key findings. Among the most sobering are related to young people. Data show a marked rise in behavioral health diagnoses among children and older youth, and a strong association between adverse childhood experiences and later mental health challenges. There is a troubling increase in emergency department visits for self‑harm, which led us to take a closer look at the trend in a spotlight on youth self-harm. We also see disparities: LGBTQ students report especially high risks, and Black and Latino students are more likely to report persistent sadness or hopelessness.
“The data are hard,” said Sienkiewicz. “They’re hard because we care. We care as a community, but there is hope. There are opportunities that we, Monroe County, can do better. We can do better in our schools. We can do better in our community.”
Sienkiewicz acknowledged how difficult behavioral health data is to access and thanked partners—including 211 and an advisory cohort of local leaders—who made a rigorous county‑level analysis possible. She recapped the assessment’s five opportunity areas—early detection and prevention; training across sectors; family‑centered approaches; facilitating access (home visiting, telehealth, school‑based care, community health workers); and reducing silos via coordination, billing for collaboration, and peer navigation—which then structured the small‑group work.
Small‑group discussions quickly moved from ideas to implementation. Participants called for funding so clinicians and educators can pursue training like Project TEACH—a statewide program that supports pediatric clinicians to deliver quality mental health care, among other things—without reducing access. They also called for regulatory relief and fewer hand‑offs that force people to retell their story, and for treating collaboration as a “product” that is staffed and resourced, not expected additional work that would remain unfunded. Family‑centered approaches centered on serving the whole family, expanding restorative practices, and creating neighborhood spaces that help people connect. Early detection focused on giving the adults closest to kids—teachers, after‑school staff, coaches—the tools to recognize early signals and “know the pathway” to help. Several voices elevated peer support—youth, family, and adult—as one of the most effective tools, with a clear call to fund peers correctly, ensure fair reimbursement, and embed them on clinical teams.
A press conference was held after the roundtable discussion, where Common Ground Health Director of Mental Health and Wellness Melanie Funchess, spoke to why this moment is different: “We didn't just speak to insurers and system heads. We spoke to actual families.” When asked what programs need more support she highlighted Healer’s Village, including its Indigenous Psychotherapy and Anti‑Racist, Culturally Competent Treatment training that is already improving engagement. Clinicians who complete it are seeing lower no‑show rates and less loss to contact, showing that people in treatment are getting their needs met. The ripple effects are profound. “For every clinician we are able to train, they see around 200 unduplicated people a year,” said Funchess. “To date, we have trained about 200 clinicians who have directly touched 40,000 people.”
Jennifer Lake, president and CEO of Goodwill of the Finger Lakes, shared encouraging news about the 988 hotline that went live in July 2022. “In the calendar year 2025, your local 988 center for the Greater Rochester and Finger Lakes region received a total of 28,119 contacts—99.5% of those contacts were resolved through that call to 988,” she said. “Less than 2% of calls involve law enforcement.”
Lake shared how people are reaching out for help earlier and being matched to the right level of support—evidence of a crisis system that is humane, responsive, and increasingly well‑understood in our community.
Assemblywoman Clark summed things up this way: “It is our goal that we really work with all of those who know these spaces better than I as an elected official do, to help Rochester not just serve its community better, but to hopefully be a leader in both the state and the country when it comes to tackling mental health.”