Holly's Rose Hill offers treatment for the mentally ill

By Ryan Ermanni
Fox 2 News

HOLLY, Mich. (WJBK) -- With the tragedy in Connecticut last week, the topic of mental health has become a major issue.  Where do you go?  What about treatment facilities?

Rose Hill is a residential psychiatric treatment facility, the only one of its kind in the state of Michigan.

"It breaks your heart to see something like this happen.  It's just a tragedy beyond imagination, and it's great opportunity for us to really start talking about the needs of individuals in our community that may have issues and that need treatment and the barriers there are to them getting the treatment they need," said President and CEO Ben Robinson.

United States Congressman Gary Peters spoke about some of those barriers.

"To me it is very troubling that when we look at healthcare costs in America and the way that we provide healthcare, one of the first things that usually gets cut is mental health services.  Mental health is something that we have to focus on.  We've got to make sure that those services are made available for everybody across America.  It's a serious public health issue for people.  It can also lead to the tragedies that unfortunately we see all too often," he said.

For 20 years, Rose Hill has treated and aided the road to recovery for so many patients who clearly needed help.

"People come to us very ill.  Families bring their loved ones here with a sense of we don't know where to go," said Vice President of Programs Cheryl Leclear Wallace.

"Our goal is for people to leave Rose Hill ready to go back to work or back to school, to be productive citizens in society, and in almost all cases that happens," Robinson said.

But in order to do that, a person who needs help must first accept it.  Forcing one into that help may not be the way to go.

"I think it's important to recognize that we have to meet the person where they're at," Wallace said.  "It's really hard to say, okay, I have a mental illness when there's stigma out there over it and I'm going to just jump into therapy."

"It's truly remarkable to see the challenging situations that people come to us with," said Robinson.

But for those who need it and want a better quality of life, there is help out there that works.

"Through the right amount of intervention and time and resource at Rose Hill Center can really leave here being a productive individuals reunited with their family, integrated back into the community," Robinson said.