By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
After 45 years of service, Walt Hill, executive director of High Plains Mental Health Center, will retire as of January.
Hill, 71, has seen tremendous growth at the mental health center as well as lead innovation in technology that has extended the reach of mental health services to thousands of rural residents in northwest Kansas.
Hill moved to Hays with his wife so he could attend graduate school at Fort Hays State University. He worked as an intern for the mental health services as a student and then was hired to work at Hadley Hospital in the psychiatric unit as a therapist after graduation.
"I had a personal interest in helping other people," he said. "I had a brother who had long-term mental illness."
He pointed to a painting hanging on his wall of his brother and a group of his brother's friends who supported him through his journey with mental illness.
On the opposite wall is a picture of his mother with her brothers.
"They grew up very, very poor and had struggles," he said, "so there were just things that I wanted to give back. I wanted to have a life of service and mission."
Hill worked in management and developed programs for substance abuse treatment and crisis management.
In 1988, he left Hays to work at a children's psychiatric hospital in Minnesota. Hill and his family missed Hays and within a year, moved back. Hill resumed work at High Plains Mental Health eventually working his way up to director of clinical services and then executive director.
When High Plains was founded in 1964, it employed three people and had a budget of $32,000. When Hill took over as executive director in 2003, the center's budget was $7.9 million.
Today, High Plains has a staff of about 150 people and an additional $10 million budget.
High Plains now serves 20 counties in northwest Kansas with about 100,000 people in its catchment area. It is the largest geographic area covered by a community mental health center in Kansas.
"Innovation is really important in mental health to stay up with what the needs of people are, particularly in frontier areas, to make sure we will be able to deliver the services that are needed when there aren't a lot of providers in rural and frontier areas," Hill said.
As the director of clinical services, Hill helped develop the telemedicine services at High Plains in the 1990s. The service was in its infancy nationally at that time.
He said telemedicine has been absolutely critical to providing mental health services to rural Kansas residents.
Before telemedicine, psychiatrists traveled by car or plane to rural areas of the state. This severely limited the time the physicians could spend with clients. The doctor could only see patients one day a month at a remote location.
Hill said that chartering a plane or paying a provider to drive for hours was very costly.
When the pandemic hit, Hill said telemedicine was a blessing. Some community mental health services were forced to lay off staff. Because High Plains already had a telemedicine system in place, its providers were able to continue to see clients.
During Hill's tenure at High Plains Mental Health, many other changes have occurred in the state's mental health system.
Individuals who had mental illnesses were moved from hospitals into community-based treatment. Screening was implemented to make sure people who were hospitalized needed to be there.
Many services were developed to keep people out of hospitals and in their communities.
Because of cost, HaysMed, as well as other hospitals across the state, were forced to close their in-patient psychiatric units.
To partially fill that void, High Plains Mental Health opened the four-bed Schwaller Center for psychiatric crisis intervention.
"People have been saved from driving to Larned, been able to see a psychiatrist and have medication adjustments and have a safe place to be. That's been a critical development," Hill said.
Even as he has been preparing to retire, Hill has been in discussion with the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services about the need to expand crisis services similar to those offered at the Schwaller Center in the region.
Psychiatric patients have been held in emergency rooms for hours to days waiting to be admitted to state hospitals, Hill said.
High Plains also developed branch offices in Colby, Goodland, Norton, Osborne and Phillipsburg.
In the 1990s, High Plains developed housing for people who suffered from chronic mental health conditions. This included Wood Haven in Hays and Colby House in Colby.
"I think we have better techniques and science to treat people," Hill said.
High Plains recently implemented a medication-assisted substance abuse program for people who have opioid addiction. The clients receive both medication and counseling.
"We've had a dramatic but not enough reduction in stigma," Hill said.
More funding is available to treat people in their communities rather than in state hospitals, but maintaining a workforce of mental health providers continues to be a challenge, he said.
High Plains also now offers assertive community treatment in coordination with the court system. The program works with individuals who may have been in and out of hospitals for court-ordered treatment. A team helps the individual with goals for stability.
High Plains Mental Health Center has become a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic during Hill's tenure. The center received grants to begin programs such as medication-assisted outpatient treatment and assertive community treatment and has been able to continue those programs through Medicaid funding.
High Plains became an early implementer of the community-based Mental Health First Aid training program. To date, more than 3,300 northwest Kansas residents have been certified in the program by High Plains staff trainers.
The center has also done outreach to the agriculture community and now offers services for Spanish-speaking residents.
High Plains has extended its services to include cooperative programs with all but one of the school districts in its catchment area. Students can attend sessions without leaving school.
"The goal is to keep people from falling through the cracks," Hill said.
In the broader scope of his career, Hill said he hopes he has promoted the acceptance and importance of mental health services and made access to mental health services easier for those in rural areas.
Hill said he has stressed to his staff that he doesn't want a retirement party or "shenanigans" as he put it."
"What is important to me — the recognition — is the lives we've impacted and the people we've helped, even those who don't come back and say thank you," he said. "They go on about their lives. That's what's important. That's what's meaningful to me."