TRI-county behavioral healthcare cmhc - TRI-county behavioral healthcare's (tcbhc) proposed project would support and restore vital clinical service delivery and recovery-oriented support services…

TRI-county behavioral healthcare cmhc - TRI-county behavioral healthcare's (tcbhc) proposed project would support and restore vital clinical service delivery and recovery-oriented support services to individuals with SMI, SED, COD in the texas counties of montgomery, liberty, and walker. The three mostly rural counties contain many behavioral health and health disparity populations, including economically disadvantaged communities (poverty rates range from 10.3% to 24.4%; the national average is 10.4%), and minority populations (black/african-american populations range from 4.6% to 23%, hispanic/latino populations range from 18% to 23%, white populations range from 54% to 63%, compared to the national average of 76.3% white), with approximately 17% spanish-speaking language minorities. The pandemic has significantly decreased tcbhc's revenue while increasing community need, jeopardizing the ability to provide key services. Tcbhc has seen unprecedented increases in mental illness severity, symptoms and crises, steadily rising service requests and crisis contacts, and new gaps in access to timely mental health care and other needed services. Client employment is down by 20%, and clients are losing access to primary health care, chronic health condition management and other supportive services that improve mental health outcomes, and enhance treatment engagement and efficacy. The proposed project would support and restore core clinical services, including: 1. Sustaining 24/7/365 crisis response capacity (objectives include maintaining our walk-in crisis and mcot services, avoiding unnecessary psychiatric admissions for involuntary individuals by providing psychiatric evaluation, either in person or via telehealth; suicide prevention training; and community outreach); 2. Sustaining outpatient integrated health (IH) and wellness services to provide primary care, chronic condition management, and health education and promotion to individuals whose mental health needs complicate receiving these services in mainstream settings (objectives include improved blood pressure among IH clients, wellness activities that improve health behavior knowledge and skills); 3. Expanding supported employment and education (see) services (objectives include clients obtaining and maintaining community based employment and education); 4. Enhancing our ability to partner with schools to serve children/youth with SED by hiring a school-based service intensive coordinator (objectives include raising awareness of and facilitating access to mental health services); and 5. Supporting the mental health and wellbeing of staff by developing responsive resources/training. With over 38 years of experience providing culturally competent, trauma informed, recovery-oriented and person-centered care to diverse underserved populations in our service area, tcbhc is well qualified to carry out the proposed project. Evaluation will be conducted by SAE and associates (SAE) behavioral health evaluation (BHE), which has evaluated ccbhc and cmhc projects and multiple samhsa initiatives. 500 individuals will be served in each year of the project, for a total of 1000 unduplicated individuals.