Music: Tricia Forbes Of The SIMS Foundation On The Benefit Bash + Helping The Music Community

Since 1995, The SIMS Foundation has worked to provide mental health and addiction recovery services to Austin's working musician community. SIMS' mission statement sums up the scope of the problem succinctly: "...irregular hours, travel schedules and financial insecurity can take their toll on musicians and their families, sometimes resulting in depression, anxiety and relationship problems." This is, of course, in addition to the fact that many Austin musicians do not have health insurance which would cover needed treatments. By offering help through 60 partner therapist and clinical providers, the organization helps hundreds of musicians in our area annually.

Last year, SIMS added an annual "Benefit Bash" to their calendar to help with fundraising for the upcoming year. The 2011 event takes place Saturday at the Austin Music Hall with Grupo Fantasma headlining. We recently spoke to SIMS Foundation head Tricia Forbes on the charity's focus, the details of this year's fundraiser, and the feedback she receives from our creative community.

To begin, we suspect a lot of people confuse HAAM and SIMS at times, since both are support organizations for Austin musicians. For those less familiar, can you tell us a bit about the mission of SIMS?

SIMS has provided mental health and addiction recovery services for Austin-area musicians and their families since 1995. We actually work very closely with HAAM as we share a good number of clients; we are one of their affiliate service providers, along with Seton and St. David's, which means HAAM supports our work financially through an annual contract. (It was $80,000 in 2011; our annual budget is $700,000.) Through SIMS, eligible musicians can receive counseling with an LPC, LCSW, or psychologist; medication management with a psychiatrist; and/or medical detox, inpatient treatment and even time at a structured post-treatment sober living facility for people struggling with addiction. Our two staff clinicians provide case management and act as advocates for our clients. We serve approximately 700 people a year, and our model allows us to leverage $700,000 of in-kind services from the clinicians in our network, who serve our clients at a significantly reduced rate.

Is the Benefit Bash the largest fundraiser of your year? Tell us about the things that make this year's party special.

The Bash is indeed our largest fundraiser, and this is our second year doing it. We think it's special for many reasons: it gives us an opportunity to bring all of SIMS' supporters and friends together to celebrate the important work, it raises funds that allow us to carry out our mission, and Grupo Fantasma is always fun. How can you not have fun at a Grupo show? We also have Will Taylor & Strings attached, a special appearance by Suzanna Choffel, and we've just announced that Sahara Smith and Will Sexton will play a few songs, too.

This year we've been focusing on outreach to Latino musicians, and we'll be showing a new four minute Latino outreach video we created to help reduce the stigma associated with mental illness and encourage people to seek help. It features Michelle Valles interviewing Ruben Ramos, Little Joe, Alejandro Escovedo, and other prominent Latino musicians.

Any silent auction highlights you'd care to mention?

Let's see. Yes. A stage worn t-shirt of Alice Cooper's; signed items by The Rolling Stones (posters) and Crosby, Still, Nash & Young (the Déja Vu album); several great weekend getaways; golf packages; fine art curated by our friends from Generous Art.

For those who cannot attend, what other methods are out there for those wishing to pitch in or volunteer?

They can sign up to volunteer or make a donation on the web at simsfoundation.org. Both are greatly appreciated!

Finally, SIMS has been serving the Austin community for 15 years. Do you receive a lot of praise, feedback, or constructive criticism from local musicians in your day-to-day interactions?

It's actually 16 years now! We do. We survey clients annually to get feedback, and we also have a Musicians Advocacy Panel that helps with outreach and gives us input about services. SIMS tables at a lot of music festivals and events, and it's rare that we don't have at least one person per event say something along the lines of "SIMS saved my life" or "SIMS really helped me through a tough time." That's why we're here.