Be Well FAQs

Q. What is Be Well OC? 
A. Be Well OC is a transformative initiative bringing together public, private, academic and faith-based organizations, as well as others, to create a coordinated system of mental health care and support for all Orange County residents. The Be Well OC mental health system, which also includes substance use services, spans across all cities of Orange County and a range of needs, from prevention and early intervention to crisis aversion, acute care and recovery.  

Q. Who is involved with Be Well?
A. Be Well is a coalition of hundreds of organizations across Orange County, representing multiple sectors of the community, including County and private health systems, law enforcement, fire and emergency services, schools and major universities, private business, and the faith community.  Be Well OC brings together these public and private partners to build a transformational system of mental health care for all Orange County residents.

Q. What is the Be Well OC vision? 
A. The vision of Be Well OC is to lead the nation in optimal mental health and wellness for all Orange County residents. 

Q. How is Be Well OC organized? 
A. Be Well OC is organized around an innovative model known as Collective Impact. This model recognizes that complex problems cannot be addressed by a single system or organization, and it leverages a Distributed Leadership approach. It promotes interdependency among partners and collective accountability for results. 

Q. Can you say more about Collective Impact? 
A. Collective Impact originated out of Stanford and is a powerful, best-practice model for transforming systems and solving complex problems. In this model, leaders representing the many sectors of a community work together to accomplish a population-wide outcome.  

Q. What is the Be Well OC Blueprint? 
A. Co-created by public, private, faith-based and academic stakeholders across the county, the Be Well OC Blueprint articulates the community’s vision. It gives structure to the Distributed Leadership Model to strengthen connections and collaboration across organizations and sectors.  

Q. What are the results that Be Well OC hopes to achieve? 
A. The Blueprint is organized around six key result areas: 

• Reduce stigma: Improved mental health awareness, attitudes, and understanding throughout the Orange County community
• Prevent and act early: Effective prevention and early intervention services are available to all Orange County residents
• Close treatment gaps and improve access: All Orange County residents can access needed programs and services when and where they need them; emphasis on interorganizational transitions of care and warm connections
• Strengthen crisis response: All Orange County residents can access crisis support through a network of facilities, mobile teams, and digital tools
• Align partners, policies and programs: Addressing complex, interrelated issues of mental illness, addiction, and homelessness, among others
• Establish community Wellness Hubs: Coordinated, integrated, responsive health, behavioral health, and wellness services capacity; integrated primary care/behavioral health, urgent needs, mobile treatment strategically located in three geographic regional areas 

Q. Why will this be any different than other previously proposed solutions?  
A. No one organization, or even sector, can solve the pervasive challenge of mental health and substance use disorders alone. In Orange County, there are exceptional services today, but they function in silos. It’s difficult to connect with the right care when and where it’s needed.  With an intentionally, coordinated public-private partnership approach, the community will benefit from best-in-class services within a system they can more easily navigate. 

Q. Where can I find more information about Be Well OC? 
A. We encourage you to sign-up to be kept informed at bewelloc.org. You can also follow Be Well OC on Facebook or Instagram.  

 
NEED FOR INTEGRATED MENTAL HEALTH CARE SYSTEM

 
Q. Why does Orange County need an integrated mental health and wellness program? 
A. Mental Health is fundamental to overall health and wellbeing, and unfortunately mental illness affects all of us, impacting individuals at every stage of life. 

•   Currently, one in five adults experiences a mental health issue in any given year 
•   One in 25 live with a serious mental illness 
•   One in 10 young people experience a major episode of depression in any given year 

In Orange County, families are suffering in the face of increasing mental health and substance use disorders. For many families, these challenges have become devastating catastrophes. Orange County can be a model of how a community unites to ensure optimal mental health and wellness for all.  

Q. What issues are present in the Orange County mental health system of care? 
A. Current specific issues in the Orange County system of care include: 

• People cannot connect to the right care in the right place when they need it. Gaps in services, access and funding plague the mental health system, especially in terms of crisis intervention, acute care and addiction treatment.  
• Fragmentation and health care silos contribute to service gaps and access challenges, limiting coordination, and maintaining competition among organizations, diluting the potential collective impact.
• Disparities and inequities in geographic service availability throughout the county.
• Available care is not always delivered optimally using evidence-based or expert-recommended best practices, which produces poor outcomes and inefficiencies, wasting precious resources. 

Q. What are the current barriers to care in the mental health and wellness arena 
A. People do not seek care for mental health and wellness issues for a variety of reasons, including: 

•   Lack of understanding regarding the importance and effectiveness of prevention and early intervention. 
•   Lack of hope and understanding that recovery and well-being are possible for those living with mental illness. 
•   Lack of knowledge about effective treatments and where to find the right help. 
•   Stigma negatively impacts hope and self-esteem, increases severity of psychiatric symptoms, and decreases outreach and engagement in treatment. 
•   Could we add lack of access?

MIND OC OVERVIEW 

Q. What is Mind OC and what is its role in the Be Well Ecosystem? 
A. Mind OC is a not-for-profit, 501(c)3 that serves as the central backbone within the Distributed Leadership structure for Be Well OC. Mind OC is a nimble, neutral entity that can convene, coordinate and align stakeholders to continually advance the Be Well OC Mental Health System.  To learn more, visit the Mind OC website.

Q. What is the difference between Be Well OC and Mind OC?  
A. Be Well OC is the county-wide movement to transform the mental health system and ensure that all residents who need care get the right care, at the right time and in the right place. Mind OC serves as the central backbone within the distributed leadership structure for Be Well OC.  

Mind OC helps to coordinate the backbone organizations committed to advancing the six result areas of the Blueprint.  

Q. What is the focus of Mind OC?  
A. Mind OC has three primary areas of focus: 

•   Mental health and wellness infrastructure development 
•   Optimize value and transparency in mental health and substance use disorder services 
•   Be Well OC sustainability and public/private partnerships