Mission
Touchstone Mental Health inspires hope, healing and
well-being.
Recovery from serious and persistent mental illness starts at Touchstone Mental Health. The agency is an innovative leader in creating opportunities and sustainable communities for people living with mental illness. We aspire to be a touchstone in their lives.
Our services make it possible for individuals to survive and thrive in the community, to avoid frequent hospitalizations,
to build supportive relationships and to work successfully toward well-being. We work with consumers as whole persons, integrating treatment and resources to support healthy minds, bodies and spirits.
Vision
Touchstone Mental Health is a center of excellence, providing quality programs, services and products to assure that people living with mental illness can enjoy the highest quality of life and achieve their greatest personal potential. Touchstone builds on its history of innovation to deepen, grow and sustain its programs to meet existing and emerging needs. Organizational excellence is enhanced through effective strategic alliances, quality staff and leadership and increased visibility and is supported by updated technology and a diversified base of funding.
Philosophy
In our four programs, we help over 200 adult women and men annually, supporting their lives in our communities—
16 in our Assisted Living Apartments, 40 in our Intentional Communities, 50 through Residential Treatment (an IRTS) and 120 through our Intensive Community
Rehabilitation Services.
Our approach addresses the whole person in a compassionate and empathetic way. It includes
individualized treatment that focuses on recovery and provides opportunities for involvement in the
surrounding community.
Respectful and caring, our staff takes the time to understand what is happening in consumers’ lives. Through our support, our consumers develop the skills they need to live fulfilling lives and find the resources they need to support their goals. Our staff members possess diverse skills, with education and experience in a variety of fields, including social work, nursing, psychiatry, psychology, chemical health, therapeutic recreation, and marriage and family therapy.
We accomplish our mission by providing:
- Intensive, short-term residential treatment
- Long-term, community-based rehabilitative services
- Integrated services, such as Healing Touch and Acupuncture
- Assisted living apartments
- Intentional communities
History
In 1982, five faculty members from the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota created Community Care Corporation, a for-profit company, to provide services to adults with severe and persistent mental illness. Community Care became a nonprofit in 1999 and changed its name to Touchstone Mental Health on November 1, 2004.
- 1982 Community Care Corporation incorporates and opens Sentinel House, a residential treatment program in Minneapolis.
- 1985 Breckinridge House opens as a second residential treatment facility in New Hope.
- 1991 Project Connections opens to provide home-based case management to consumers residing in Hennepin County.
- 2004 Project Connections, now Touchstone Case Management Services, begins offering innovative integrative services such as acupuncture.
- 2004 Breckinridge House becomes Touchstone Assisted Living Apartments, the first in Minnesota for persons with serious and persistent mental illness.
- 2005 Sentinel House, now Touchstone Residential Treatment, becomes an Intensive Residential Treatment (IRTS) program.
- 2006 Touchstone develops Touchstone Intentional Communities, with the first location in the Seward neighborhood of Minneapolis, another first in Minnesota.
- 2007 Touchstone develops a second Intentional Community in the Phillips Neighborhood in
South Minneapolis. - 2008 Touchstone Case Management Services converts to Touchstone Intensive Community
Rehabilitative Services.
