Indiana nonprofit expands home visits and youth mental health care
The Villages of Indiana will serve 20 counties with new funding for family support and telehealth services.
By Amina Yusuf ·
New parents and young people in Indiana will soon have access to free, in-home support and virtual mental health care. The Villages of Indiana announced it is expanding its Healthy Families Indiana program to nine additional counties. This expansion will make the nonprofit the largest provider of the service in the state, with operations in 20 counties.
The program offers voluntary home visits that pair families with a support worker. These workers assist with needs related to pregnancy, employment, housing, and mental health. The new locations fill vacancies left by former providers, ensuring the program remains active in all 92 Indiana counties.
Rachel Colclazier, a senior director at the organization, stated that the expansion will improve access for families in rural areas. “This allows us as home visitors to come directly to the families, and so we don’t have to ask families to spend gas money to come and visit us. We are meeting them where they are,” Colclazier said.
The expansion of the family support program is funded by a four-year investment of more than $34 million from the Indiana Department of Childhood Services. Officials expect the funding to help an additional 475 families and conduct more assessments over the next year.
In a separate move this month, Indiana Youth Institute awarded The Villages of Indiana $500,000 over three years. This grant comes through a Lilly Endowment initiative and will be used to offer youth mental health services statewide. The services will be delivered through telehealth to reach young people in underserved areas.
According to the Indiana Department of Health’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 47% of youth reported feeling sad or hopeless. The same survey found that reported suicide attempts among students averaged 15.7%. Shannon Schumacher, president and CEO of The Villages of Indiana, noted that accessing specialized care for youth trauma, depression, and anxiety can be difficult. “We know that young people are used to virtual environments,” Schumacher said. “We’re seeing, and research is backing that virtual services work very very well in the behavioral health realm, particularly for this population of youth and teens in particular.”
Schumacher said the state funding and grants allow the organization to meet immediate needs that would otherwise take a long time to address.
