Kristine Santoro, COO of Didi Hirsch, was among the panel of mental health leaders and advocates presenting at this year’s SOCAP conference. SOCAP is an annual convention that brings together investors, social entrepreneurs, and other changemakers to inspire investment in positive impact.
Santoro provided insight on mental health equity, the crisis care continuum, and funding strategies from a nonprofit perspective:
“We’ve been providing crisis care continuum services for over 80 years. […] For us, the part of how we help bridge gaps was, really, we built a crisis care consortium in 2014,” shared Santoro.
“We turned into what’s now called 988, which is for suicide prevention and mental health, and we were asked to be the leads for California. But that was only possible because of extreme perseverance. A lot of advocacy, a lot of reputation building, a lot of partnership building, a lot of collaboration and a lot of strong data where we could show the ROI that we’re saving lives. We know it works, and we want to be able to provide a service that is less costly and less restrictive than ultimately inpatient hospitalization.”
Didi Hirsch was honored to represent the nonprofit mental health sector at this innovative conference – highlighting the need for parity and greater access to mental health. Over the course of three days, the event offered insightful sessions, facilitated networking opportunities, and open discussions centered on the theme, “Going Deeper: Catalyzing Systems Change.” A key focus was exploring how philanthropy, investment, and government funding can effectively collaborate to serve more people in need and create a more equitable future.
