MISSOULA — The Learning Center at Red Willow in Missoula is putting extra grant money to use by adding more counseling for first responders affected by the COVID-pandemic.
The Western Montana Mental Health Center received $130,000 in grant funding to help with mental health programming in Missoula County and Red Willow is receiving about 10% of the money.
Red Willow was already offering some online counseling for first responders, but the grant money adds an additional class and the ability to do follow-up work.
Executive director Kath Mangan says demand for the programming due to the COVID-19 pandemic is so great extra funding couldn’t have come at a better time.
"The demand has really increased, especially now that people have figured out that this isn’t going to go away anytime soon," Mangan explained. "Now we are looking for long term strategies than we did before. It felt temporary for quite a while now I think that we got this could be around for a while."
The first session is already underway and Mangan says the second session will begin after the first of the year.
