H79SM085563

Pioneer Valley Outpatient Program - Behavioral Health Network, Inc. proposes to serve 500 adults and youth in year one, and 1,000 persons total over two years in an enhanced, multidisciplinary treatment team approach in 8 outpatient treatment sites, in a project called Pioneer Valley Outpatient Service. The service locations are Springfield, Holyoke, Ware, and Westfield, MA. We will serve persons with Serious Mental Illness (SMI), Co-Occurring Disorders (COD), and Substance Use Disorders (SED), focusing on low-income, persons of color, rural, and youth populations.

During COVID-19, BHN is witnessing a higher clinical acuity in our clients and a rapidly increasing community need for services. At the same time, BHN's capacity to serve has decreased due to vicarious trauma and the personal impacts of the pandemic on our clinical staff. Starting the pandemic with a low clinician workforce, we have been challenged over the last year to bring our clinician ranks up to the size needed to be fully responsive to the community need. Combined with this is additional voluntary terminations of some staff and reductions in work hours for others.

Project interventions include standard outpatient services delivered in a multidisciplinary team structure. We will offer (primarily telehealth) screening, assessment, diagnosis, treatment planning, recovery support services, case management, peer support, resource navigation, and psychosocial rehabilitation. We will support our staff as they manage their mental health needs and provide culturally competent trainings to better serve our diverse populations. Peers will be included on the teams and fully trained and supported in their roles.

Our multidisciplinary team model is designed to respond to the more intensive care and support needs of higher acuity clients to help retain them in services and more readily meet their self-identified treatment goals, including goals related to their social determinants of health needs. Team members include the masters prepared behavioral health clinician, the navigator, and providers at other levels of care who are invested in the person's goals. We will create a "one person/one plan" approach to care. This plan includes 1-2 teams at each of 8 clinics. Our expectation is that shared responsibility for high-acuity client care will reduce clinician stress and prevent the exacerbation of vicarious trauma.

Our goals include increasing the capacity of our outpatient services to meet the needs of clients by utilizing teams to reduce the time from intake to assessment, and then from assessment to ongoing service provision, and to increase the number of new intakes we perform annually. Our second goal is to improve client outcomes via the multidisciplinary treatment team approach, by helping them to achieve at least one treatment goal in 6 months, reducing their need for crisis interventions, and leaving them satisfied with the services they receive. Our third goal is to improve the capacity of staff to deliver services, whereby they express greater job satisfaction, are retained as employees, and complete training in a new evidence-based practice. We will reduce our waitlists, provide more intensive, culturally competent care by trained, culturally humble clinical and peer staff, and help our employees better manage their own self-care and wellness.

Behavioral Health Network

TO PROVIDE FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE TO STATES AND TERRITORIES TO ENABLE THEM TO CARRY OUT THE STATE'S PLAN FOR PROVIDING COMPREHENSIVE COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES TO ADULTS WITH A SERIOUS MENTAL ILLNESS AND TO CHILDREN WITH A SERIOUS EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCE, MONITOR THE PROGRESS IN IMPLEMENTING A COMPREHENSIVE COMMUNITY BASED MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM, PROVIDE TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO STATES AND THE MENTAL HEALTH PLANNING COUNCIL THAT WILL ASSIST THE STATES IN PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING A COMPREHENSIVE COMMUNITY BASED MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM.

93.958 - Block Grants for Community Mental Health Services

Division of Grants Management [HHS - SAMHSA]

Massachusetts United States

State-Wide

Community Mental Health Centers Grant Program (SM-21-014)

Amendment Since initial award the End Date has been extended from 09/29/23 to 09/29/24 and the total obligations have decreased 3% from $5,000,000 to $4,855,000.