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Integrating Peers in CCBHCs: The Power of Lived Experience
Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) have shifted the way we approach treatment and the delivery of behavioral health services. Those who hold the designation of CCBHC have been tasked with providing a person-centered model that combines mental health services, substance use...
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Investing in the Behavioral Health Workforce: Training, Professional Development, and Advancing Clinical Excellence
Behavioral health clinicians are seeing more patients with complex, co-occurring disorders and acute symptoms that require multidisciplinary care. At the same time, referrals and expectations for timely, high-quality care are rising. These demands take a toll on care quality and clinician...
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Westchester County Develops “Lives Forward” Program – Providing Dual Certification MH and Addiction Peer Training to Currently Justice Involved Individuals
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” Few things illustrate this better than using one’s lived experience to support another person seeking recovery from co-occurring disorders. Now formally recognized as “peer”...
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Suicide Risks with Depression, Anxiety and Co-occurring Depression/Anxiety
The fact that depression increases the risk of suicide should come as no surprise. Less well known are the suicidal risks of anxiety and the synergistic effect of co-occurring depression and anxiety. Additional life factors can function as triggers and increase those risks even more. We will look...
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The Importance of Real-Time Data in Tailored Patient Treatment and Integrating Traditional Wellness Practices in Modern Substance Abuse Therapy
In the ever-evolving field of mental health and substance abuse therapy, utilizing real-time data to tailor patient treatment is becoming increasingly crucial. Real-time data allows healthcare providers to monitor and adjust treatment plans promptly based on the latest information, leading to more...
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Moving Toward Recovery After Discharge with the Ongoing Abstinence Recovery Schedule Program™
Like many psychiatric hospitals, Montgomery County Emergency Service (MCES), located in Norristown, PA, serves adults with primary serious mental illness many of whom also have a co-occurring substance use disorder (COD), sometimes involving opiates. This “double trouble” puts them at greater...
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360 is More Than Just an Address, It’s a Model of Care for The Mental Health Association of Westchester
In 2022, preliminary data released by the CDC indicated that more than 100,000 people had died from drug overdoses (CDC). This total marks a new annual record in nationwide drug overdose deaths and is twice the size of 2015’s record, underscoring the alarming escalation of this crisis (NPR, Times...
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Quality Integrated Care is Critical for the Recovery of Individuals with Mental Health and Substance Use Challenges
Integrated care works with the whole person in the world they are experiencing including their physical and behavioral health, as well as past trauma and other social determinants impacting their lives. Individuals with co-occurring disorders, when treated holistically, develop a trusting...
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Lessons Learned in Effectively Advancing Co-Occurring Competent Care
Recently, there has been great emphasis on enhancing organizational co-occurring competency and for good reason. Climbing overdose and suicide rates, with bi-directional contribution from mental health (MH) and substance use disorders (SUD), reflect our need to do better serving those with multiple...
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The NYSPA Report: Overdose Prevention Centers Keep Our People Alive
People with opioid use disorder (OUD) have a high prevalence of a serious mental illness (SMI). Nearly 27% of people with an OUD had a co-occurring SMI (Jones and McCance-Katz 2019), which complicates care when access to dual diagnosis treatment is limited. Overdose deaths have steadily increased...
