Advocates community mental health centers (cmhc) - with samhsa cmhc funds, advocates (established 1975) will build the capacity of its existing 24/7 behavioral health (BH) service continuum to serve…

Advocates community mental health centers (cmhc) - with samhsa cmhc funds, advocates (established 1975) will build the capacity of its existing 24/7 behavioral health (BH) service continuum to serve those populations most impacted by the covid-19 pandemic, including children/adolescents with serious emotional disturbances (SED) and adults - including seniors - with serious mental illness (SMI) and CO-occurring mental health and substance use disorders (COD) in the metrowest region of massachusetts. Advocates will build its capacity to deliver clinical services to 500 unduplicated individuals/year through three project goals. First, we will establish population-specific multilingual mobile outreach teams (MOT) to expand the existing BH continuum capacity by providing short-term treatment to prevent crises by engaging meaningfully and connecting people to outpatient care, and supporting transitions between levels of care. We will create two mots focused on our adult population with SMI/COD, one MOT focused on children/adolescents with SED, and one MOT focused on serving elders with SMI/COD. Second, we will increase medication-assisted treatment (mat) services among those experiencing COD. Our expanded addiction recovery team will prescribe FDA-approved medications, including buprenorphine and extended-release injectable naltrexone, and monitor those receiving medications. Finally, we will increase access to and adopt telehealth by hiring a digital navigator (DN) to ensure those we serve can access hipaa-compliant digital BH services by ensuring they have adequate and stable technology. The DN will also assess an individual's digital literacy and help them build knowledge of and comfort with technologies; and help individuals identify a secure, safe, and confidential location from which to engage in virtual sessions. Advocates will partner with researchers at brandeis university to conduct a performance assessment of the proposed initiative.