Mobile healing clinic planned for Milwaukee neighborhoods

Care Mobile could be deployed next year

Searching for ways to treat mental illness and other health afflictions within its high-trauma, high-poverty communities, Milwaukee is turning to an idea that’s been tested in developing world nations such as Indonesia and Thailand:

A mobile healing clinic.

As soon as next year, a 40-foot-long, half-million-dollar vehicle customized with examination rooms and a reception area could be parking itself in city neighborhoods that otherwise are devoid of mental health professionals, social workers and child psychologists.

The proposal emerged Wednesday at a monthly meeting of clinics, nonprofits, universities, therapists and social welfare agencies, which collectively want to tackle the epidemic of psychological trauma that ravages Milwaukee and cities like it. Called SWIM — Scaling Wellness in Milwaukee — the coalition recently attracted Ronald McDonald House Charities as one of its newest members.

McDonald House Charities, it turns out, has 357 affiliates around the world and 52 of them already operate mobile units — although not yet the Milwaukee branch. The charity’s global headquarters wants to fund additional “care mobiles“in communities that can show a need.

“Our chapter, which never had a care mobile, is very excited to be a part of SWIM,” Ann Petrie, president of the Milwaukee RMHC, told Wednesday’s SWIM meeting.

Existing RMHC mobile clinics offer services that are specific to local needs, such as pediatric cancer treatment in Poland and eye care in Thailand. Mobile clinics also operate in Argentina and Latvia as well as New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States, according to the Milwaukee affiliate.

Milwaukee perennially ranks among the nation’s most impoverished cities. In a series published last year, the Journal Sentinel explored entire neighborhoods where exposure to traumatic lev-

els of gunfire, violence, abuse and neglect are an everyday experience, creating a citywide epidemic of psychological trauma.

Trauma experiences in childhood, in turn, have been identified as the laterlife cause of depression, addiction, unemployment, imprisonment and even suicide and homelessness.

SWIM late last month hosted a three-day conference focused on healing those who carry the invisible wounds of neurological trauma. The event attracted 1,400 attendees from 14 states to hear some of the nation’s leading trauma-responsive practitioners and neuroscientists.

SWIM meetings operate like town hall meetings where members brainstorm on strategies to deploy the region’s existing stable of therapists, counselors and social services as strategically as possible.

Marquette University President Mike Lovell, who co-founded SWIM and leads each of the monthly meetings, said talks are underway with potential clinical service providers that can furnish staffers in the mobile clinic.

For months, the all-volunteer SWIM collective has been mapping the city’s neighborhoods to identify communities where social agencies and mental health clinics already exist — and which enclaves have the least access to treatment.

One of the overriding SWIM objectives is to fill in the gaps in the city’s

Milwaukee perennially ranks among the nation’s most impoverished cities. In a series published last year, the Journal Sentinel explored entire neighborhoods where exposure to traumatic levels of gunfire, violence, abuse and neglect are an everyday experience, creating a citywide epidemic of psychological trauma.

“asset map.” That’s where the mobile clinic fits in. The philanthropy’s global headquarters, located in Chicago near its parent-company corporate flagship, funds up to six new care mobiles each year, each costing about $500,000, which is enough for two patient examination rooms, a laboratory, and reception and medical records areas.

Candidate cities need to demonstrate a clear need for mobile resources, which shouldn’t be a problem in Milwaukee.

Jon Lehrmann, chair of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin and active SWIM member, expects the proposed Milwaukee mobile clinic to include mental health professionals, trauma-trained social workers, child psychologists as well as primary care and possibly even prenatal services.

To build trust, staffers on the unit would match the ethnicities in the communities it serves. It would coordinate with schools, churches or even farmers markets to make sure it gains acceptance.

“It’s not just driving through a neighborhood like an ice cream truck,” Petrie said.