Sstar - cmhc program - stanley ST treatment & resources, INC. (sstar), a nonprofit integrated mental health/substance use disorder and federally qualified health center located in fall river,…

Sstar - cmhc program - stanley ST treatment & resources, INC. (sstar), a nonprofit integrated mental health/substance use disorder and federally qualified health center located in fall river, massachusetts, is applying for funding to enable our community mental health center to restore the delivery of clinical services that were impacted by the covid-19 pandemic and effectively address the needs of individuals with serious emotional disturbance (SED), serious mental illness (SMI), and individuals with SMI or SED and substance use disorders, referred to as CO-occurring disorder (COD). Fall river is a gateway city that has been under siege from covid which and consistently has been one of the highest impacted area in the commonwealth of massachusetts. A city of portuguese immigrants, with extreme poverty since the mills moved overseas; fall river has been struggling to curb the virus and meet the needs of those that were struggling with their mental health before the pandemic. With this project we will be able to support and expand the limited resources for mental health services that are found in our area. Sstar will provide increased services to those with SMI, SED, and COD through the staff's enhanced ability through training to implement trauma screening through the use of the posttraumatic stress disorder checklist (PCL) tool; implement an outpatient open access treatment service that will have trained DBT clinicians as IT's foundation. Sstar will provide recovery support personnel to provide care management and recovery coaching to 90% of the enrolled clients. In addition, we will strengthen our ability to provide improved, secure, ethical telehealth services. To ensure that people become aware of our enhanced services we will begin a marketing campaign to make people aware that services are back; that we will work with the current and soon to be newly developed statewide crisis hotline to ensure that people can be referred for same day access. Lastly, we have seen how covid has not only impacted the clients of the gateway city, but IT has also impacted the staff. Staff have experienced high stress and anxiety from working through the pandemic; having to juggle their own family covid upended lives. We plan to offer a staff wellness room with massage chairs, available acupuncture sessions, and a peer led DBT group for staff.