Friday, May 9, 2025
5/9/2025
MAHEC CCBHC to serve Western North Carolina - The Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC) proposes a two-year project to become a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) to provide evidence based, trauma informed, and coordinated care to all individuals and their families experiencing behavioral health needs, serving as a behavioral safety net for those within an 18-county region of Western North Carolina (WNC). Population to be served: While all individuals with behavioral health needs in WNC will be served, the focus will be provision of services to those experiencing serious mental illness (SMI), substance use disorders/opioid use disorders (SUD/OUD), co-occurring disorders (COD), and children and adolescents with severe emotional disturbance (SED). WNC is a primarily rural and economically disadvantaged region in Southern Appalachia that has been hit hard by the opioid crisis, as evidenced by a number of unintentional opioid deaths that has more than doubled in the last decade. WNC has the highest rate of depression than any other region in the state, and high incidences of suicide in adults and children under 18 years. MAHEC will serve 1500 unduplicated individuals in year 1 and 2500 in year 2 of the grant. Project goals and objectives: Goal 1 is to provide a behavioral health safety net for the region with the objective of reducing emergency department (ED) visits related to substance use and mental health. Goal 2 is to provide evidence based practices (EBPs) to individuals experiencing behavioral health issues in order to reduce overdose deaths and suicide rates in the area, which are higher than the state and national rates. This includes the objective of increasing the number of individuals able to receive medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD). Goal 3 is to create an infrastructure of coordinated care for behavioral health in WNC by establishing formal partnerships with providers in the region such as child welfare agencies, juvenile justice centers, and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers. Through these strategies, MAHEC will enhance its capacity to provide comprehensive whole person care, not only to all individuals experiencing behavioral health issues, but to vulnerable populations as well (e.g., children in the child welfare system, those transitioning out of the justice system, veterans). MAHEC will contract with Vaya Health as a Designated Collaborating Organization to expand its capacity to provide targeted case management and crisis treatment services. Specific EBPs will provide comprehensive care to those with the most complex and severe behavioral health issues (e.g., Assertive Community Treatment [ACT]), those developed for use with suicidal patients (e.g. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy [DBT]), and developmentally appropriate care to children and caregivers (e.g., Parent Child Interaction Therapy [PCIT]). A continuous quality improvement approach, spearheaded by the project evaluator, will be implemented to drive project improvements.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).