CEO William Trowbridge and Dr. Beedle receive Indiana Council of Community Mental Health Centers Awards
May 27 2025
Dawn Nowak got a call from the police that a man had gone off his medications, knocked out the windows of his apartment complex and started wandering the streets.
“We were able to connect with him, get him to come into our inpatient psychiatric unit, got him stabilized and back on his medications,” Nowak recalled. “We connected him to the appropriate services after his release and he wasn’t evicted as a result.”
It was another example of—and a meaningful victory in—what Nowak encounters in her day-to-day work as a mobile crisis therapist, a role crucial to a new resource offered by Regional Health Systems: the Mobile Crisis Team.
Officially launched in July 2024, the Mobile Crisis Team uses two vans to respond 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to calls of people in mental health crisis. In addition to crisis therapists, each shift includes a peer recovery specialist, emergency crisis workers, medical staff, nurses, even doctors on call.
The goal is to assess an individual in crisis and get them the help or services they need—without sending the person to jail. Since it was created, the team has responded to 72 calls addressing behavioral health crises, from domestic instability, housing instability, various mental health crises, and substance misuse.
“What I like most about the work,” said Nowak, a therapist since 2009 and a longtime volunteer in the region, “is when an individual is hurting or in crisis and you can break down those barriers, build rapport and get them to open up and trust you. You can see that they have hope where initially they had none.”
Nowak’s occupation is particularly relevant this month. The National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) has designated May as Mental Health Awareness Month. This year’s theme, “In Every Story, There’s Strength,” is an effort to de-stigmatize mental health conditions and build support.
As part of this year’s campaign, NAMI is encouraging those with mental health conditions to share their stores via video, audio recording or written story to “create a movement of courage, healing and connection.”
It’s a concept that resonates with Nowak, who has experienced homelessness and domestic violence. She added that she is “in recovery.”
“The biggest strength in every story is to understand that every individual at some point in our lives needs help,” Nowak said. “That moment does not define the individual. If we’re all there to walk alongside each other and help each other through the difficult times, we can see the rainbow at the end of the tunnel. Being part of that journey is the greatest gift of this line of work.”
As someone who has experienced mental health crises, Jessica Gutesha understands that journey.
Since June of 2024, she has been a peer specialist with the Mobile Crisis Unit, another key role. A peer specialist, she explained, is someone who has lived through mental health or addiction issues and “is there to be almost a friend, to let the client know, ‘hey, it’s all right. You’re not the only person who’s been through this. I’ve been through this.’”
Peer specialists also can connect clients to community resources.
“I got into this because I remember being in the throes of mental health issues, and no one understanding what I was going through in my life,” Gutesha said. “I wanted to be there for that person, be someone who does understand.”
This month’s focus on de-stigmatizing mental health is vital to building understanding of mental health conditions, she added.
“If you had, let’s say, a heart issue or heart disease, you wouldn’t be embarrassed,” Gutesha said. “For those who experience mental health conditions, they’re quite often embarrassed by that, and it’s really nothing to be embarrassed about.”
Most important in de-stigmatizing mental health conditions, she added, “is to just keep the conversation around mental health going, and staying connected to people.”
The Mobile Crisis Team complements Regional Health Systems’ C.A.R.E. Unit, in Merrillville, which accepts all walk-ins and is a location for ambulance, fire, and police drop-offs of those experiencing a behavioral health and/or substance use-related crisis.
Utilizing a “No Wrong Door” approach, the C.A.R.E. Unit welcomes any individual in crisis regardless of whether that person comes to the unit via an emergency room visit, community organization, law enforcement or self-referral. The facility’s innovative, community-driven strategy allows an individual to receive the full benefits of services and long-term support necessary to succeed.
The unit is accessible by calling or texting 988.
“There are just so many things that the C.A.R.E. Unit and the Mobile Crisis Team can do,” Nowak said, “and so much that Regional Health Systems does for the community. It’s a real team effort and I just love that this is a one-stop shop to treat anything that a client can walk in and need.”
“And,” she added, “if we don’t have it here, we’ll refer it out—whatever it takes to best serve the client.”
