MHA Launches New Community Support Program
Toward Their Best Life
The Mental Health Assoc. (MHA) recently announced the launch of its new community support program (CSP), which is part of its BestLife Clinic.
The program aims to help individuals who are facing social, economic, and environmental factors that significantly impact their ability to access healthcare and live independently. CSP is a mobile, short-term (three to six months), intensive case-management service that helps clients who are dealing with unemployment, food insufficiency, transportation, and housing issues.
CSP services are available to individuals who have been diagnosed with a mental-health, substance-use, or co-occurring disorder. To qualify for these services, individuals must have had either a psychiatric hospitalization discharge within the past six months, multiple emergency-room visits within the past 90 days, or documented barriers to accessing and consistently utilizing essential medical and behavioral-health services. Clients must be at least 18 years old and actively enrolled in therapy, and they must be residents of Hampshire or Hampden county and not receiving other case-management services.
“The services they provide allow for our clinicians, recovery coaches, and medication prescribers to focus on their main tasks of providing therapy, peer support, and treatment, while they also serve as another set of eyes helping to monitor our participants’ needs and overall well-being.”
“Community support programs are very important for our participants as well as for our other service providers, such as clinicians, recovery coaches, and medication prescribers,” said René Piñero, vice president of Behavioral Health and Clinical Operations. “The services they provide allow for our clinicians, recovery coaches, and medication prescribers to focus on their main tasks of providing therapy, peer support, and treatment, while they also serve as another set of eyes helping to monitor our participants’ needs and overall well-being.”
Clients who qualify will work with MHA’s behavioral-health case managers to improve their overall lives by developing their daily living skills and helping them access critical resources such as benefits, housing, and healthcare. Clients will also receive assistance with accessing recovery-oriented peer-support groups and temporary assistance with transportation to essential medical and behavioral health appointments.
CSP services are available via community outreach, telehealth, and in-person. MHA accepts referrals through its Central Intake Department and accepts MassHealth and some insurances. To get in touch, call (844) 642-9355 or email the BestLife Clinic at [email protected].
MHA provides access to therapies for emotional health and wellness; services for substance use recovery, developmental disabilities, and acquired brain injury; services for housing and residential programming; and more. Its goal is to provide person-driven programming to foster independence, community engagement, wellness, and recovery.
