DRIPPING SPRINGS — A new database is now available to aid community members in locating mental health resources.
When her daughter was presenting serious mental health disturbances at approximately three years old, Brea Black became overwhelmed because she did not know what to do to help her child.
“Even the pediatrician just told me, ‘Oh, you just need to accept this child is different than your first,’” Black explained. “The way that I was treated and the ability to find help was inexcusable. Several years later, she was diagnosed with a neurological condition and that explained everything. We didn't actually have a mental health crisis; it was the way it was presented.”
Then, after getting remarried and having bonus children, she stepped into another cycle of helplessness when one of them had extreme mental health issues. Black said that it took nearly 10 years of desperately trying to find the support that she needed.
“When we went to the hospitals with social workers, we would say, ‘We want to keep her home. What resources are available to us?’ Even the social workers in the hospital couldn't give us resources,” she said. “How can this be? How can a hospital social worker not be equipped with the tools to help a family?”
After the two difficult experiences that she had fighting for her children to get the resources that they needed and deserved, Black began drafting ideas on paper a few years later in the spring of 2024 when she and her husband became empty nesters and “life had gotten a little bit easier.” But then, in August, she was in a car accident that left her with some setbacks and after overcoming the situation and surgeries, she shared that she knew that she was still alive to bring forward the passion project that she had been slowly developing for 20 years.
The project, titled Get Support Together, is an online mental health resource directory that is focused on providing access to the full spectrum of mental health providers and programs that are local to the person who is searching for help. What somebody needs in that moment can be anywhere from after-school youth empowerment to psychiatric-focused emergency rooms to support groups and more.
“Depending on where somebody is in a mental health journey, there could be any range. It can be a life coach. They feel unfulfilled, they feel sad and they go to a life coach. It can be [that] you have a child that's getting bullied at school and they need to do something empowering, so there are programs out there for teen empowerment. There are lecture series, there are parenting classes, there are groups and foundations there to help,” Black said.
While the medical directory is online and available with a goal to be accessible nationally, Black said that this will also help on the local level. She shared that there is an “amazing team of mental health officers” at the Hays County Sheriff’s Office, but an individual would have to get into a deep mental health crisis before they can get into that system.
Knowing that there is a divide on where people are at and accessible funds for resources, Black made this online directory for users. It can also be difficult for someone to know what they need if they don’t see it put in front of them as an option, Black added, which is one of the reasons why she created Get Support Together.
“What we are trying to accomplish is bridging that gap,” she said. “If you don’t know that something's there to help you, how are you going to get help?”
Currently, Black is in the process of recruiting providers from all over the country to be on the website.
To find more information and search for resources, visit www.getsupporttogether.com.
