Published: Jan 15, 2023 20:56:48
GRANT AMARYby BYRNE
staff writer
NORTHAMPTON — ServiceNet, a large non-profit welfare agency headquartered in Northampton, is using $4 million worth of federal grants designed to remove barriers to mental health and substance use disorder treatment. We plan to expand and extend the two-year pilot program. .
“This grant is intended to provide integrated and comprehensive extended services to our communities,” said Karen Franklin, Vice President of Outpatient Services. “Initially, we could only provide therapy and psychiatric services because we billed third parties and that was how we supported clinicians.”
A four-year grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration will enable ServiceNet’s accredited community behavioral health clinics at 50 Pleasant Street, Northampton and 55 Federal Street, Greenfield to provide case management, recovery coaching and peers. will be Mentor and Nursing Services. Before receiving the first grant, the agency provided an outpatient clinic that provided treatment and medication.
“People came to us with these needs all the time, but we didn’t have the resources to give them what they needed,” Franklin said. definitely offers the ability to deliver truly comprehensive care.”
At the ServiceNet outpatient clinic in Greenfield, James Flood, program director for an accredited community behavioral health clinic, said the grant-funded program serves about 190 clients at the two clinics. said.
“One of the hallmarks of how our program has impacted is our peer-led recovery coaching that focuses on substance use recovery,” Flood said, adding that Greenfield and the community are making an impact. I pointed out that I didn’t receive it. The opioid epidemic. “The more resources available for drug use recovery, the better the community is generally served in terms of behavioral and mental health.”
Flood said there are eight staff members between the two clinics: two recovery coaches, two case managers, nurses, clinicians, peer specialists and smoking cessation specialists. ServiceNet hopes to increase that number to her 12 members of staff with this grant. Flood said he was looking for a case manager in Greenfield and a nurse in Northampton.
“Thanks to this subsidy, we can hire people that our insurance doesn’t cover,” he explained.
Both Flood and Franklin said the program seeks to focus not only on young people, but also on other underserved members of the community, including LGBTQ people and veterans.
“What we’ve seen is an increased need for mental health services,” Franklin said. “The pandemic year was already difficult for people who already had mental health issues. .”
Through the grant, behavioral health clinics will be able to serve people who were previously unable to, Franklin said.
“Just being able to approach people with these needs as a team is so rewarding,” she said. “As they say, it takes a village, it takes a mental health village (for people) with all these needs.”
Flood added that she truly believes that the accredited community behavioral health clinic’s approach is “the future of behavioral health.”
“We need to treat people as multifaceted individuals,” he explained. “People are more than just mental illness diagnoses or substance use diagnoses. You have to deal with everything.
