Behavioral health expansion project - glfhc behavioral health project glfhc will use samsha's one million dollars ($1M) funding to invest in needed and sustainable expanded and new behavioral health…

Behavioral health expansion project - glfhc behavioral health project glfhc will use samsha's one million dollars ($1M) funding to invest in needed and sustainable expanded and new behavioral health services to treat more patients and reduce the significant unmet mental health needs of glfhc's service area. Samsha funds will cover the following project initiatives: - recruitment of more behavioral health clinicians and certified peer specialist - addition of full-time telepsychiatry prescribing services - implement new group therapy programs, empowerment versus loneliness groups, aces/resiliency program, homeless prescribing program - new community health workers and program administrative staff for expanded access and new treatment programs - media mental health prevention and promotion of programs - expanded access website redesign to streamline patient intake glfhc currently serves ~62,000 residents and operates nine clinic facilities, six located in lawrence (including one school-based clinic), one in methuen and haverhill, and one school-based clinic in andover. These clinics operate full-time, with additional availability during evening and weekend hours. Glfhc's primary geographic catchment area is shown below and where our mental and substance use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery services are and will be, delivered. The glfhc patient population mirrors our community as a whole. According to the 2021 uniform data system (UDS), glfhc provides comprehensive health care services to a predominantly latino population (86% of our patients); 75% are residents of lawrence, and 86% of glfhc's patients are below 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL). The majority of our patients, 74%, also identify themselves as "best served in a language other than english," primarily spanish. Designated a medically underserved area (MUA), lawrence lacks providers with multilingual capacity and cultural competency to support the low-income minority populations. Latinos in greater-lawrence face linguistic and cultural barriers to accessing coverage and care; unfamiliar with our health care system, they often delay obtaining needed medical care, exacerbating an array of medical problems. The behavioral health projects' overarching goal is to increase the number of unique patients treated by the end of the 12 months by 25%, serving an additional 400 patients, which would bring the total served by the behavioral health team at glfhc to 1,875 unique patients. Key objectives of the project include: - increase staff capacity by 6.67 ftes by 9/30/23 - expand behavioral health programs to offer open access 'walk-in' care, telepsychiatry, group therapy, older adult loneliness to empowerment group therapy, homelessness BH work, and youth trauma programming by 9/30/23 - increase the annualized number of BH patients visits by 10% by 9/30/23 as a result of conducting ten media campaigns.