Grants support primary care-mental health integration at Providence Center

PROVIDENCE – The Providence Center has been awarded two federal grants totaling $3.2 million to support collaborations with local community health centers to integrate primary care with mental health and substance abuse services provided by the center.
The first grant, for $1.2 million, will help establish Recovery Net, a program for minimum-security inmates being released from the Adult Correctional Institutions who are in short-term recovery from mental health and substance use problems.
The effort, which involves Providence Community Health Centers, Blackstone Valley Community Health Care, Rhode Island Communities for Addiction Recovery Efforts and Brown University, is expected to serve 250 men who are re-entering the community in the greater Providence area.
The second grant, for $2 million over four years, will allow the Providence Center’s facility at 530 North Main St., Providence, to serve as a “medical home” to 200 clients whom it is treating for severe and persistent mental health and/or substance use problems.
As part of the program, a partnership with Providence Community Health Centers and Blackstone Valley Community Health Care, those patients will receive primary care services from nurses embedded in the mental health center’s community treatment teams.
“Chronic diseases like high blood pressure and diabetes are typically seen among our clients,” said Dale K. Klatzker, president and CEO of the Providence Center. “Accessing and following up with primary care is often a challenge for our clients, but with on-site primary care at their community mental health center, there is no wrong door to for them to get care that will help them live a full and productive life.”
The primary care services will be part of a broader screening and treatment plan that may also include referrals to behavioral health and medical services; help with housing, jobs and education; legal services; case management; family counseling; and specialized services for African-American and Latino clients.
Both grants come from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, which recently issued survey data showing that current illicit drug use in the United States grew from 8 to 8.7 percent of the population aged 12 and over from 2008 to 2009 alone.
The survey also found a very large gap between the need and the availability of services, with 23.5 million Americans needing treatment, but only 2.6 million receiving it.
In announcing the grants, Providence Center officials noted that studies have found that the lifespan for people with mental health and substance use problems is 25 years less than the general population because of high occurrences of other conditions that often contribute to poor overall health, such as heart disease, obesity, smoking and poor nutrition.
The Providence Center serves more than 10,000 adults, children and adolescents per year who have mental illness, substance use and emotional problems, with sliding-scale fees to ensure that people with low or no incomes have access to care. To learn more, visit www.providencecenter.org.