The Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, a provider of bidirectional behavioral and primary care in Southeast Michigan, will increase the total number of Southeast Michigan adults and children, struggling with serious mental illness and substance use disorders, who have access to and utilize person-centered treatment. The two-year project will particularly target the large, marginalized Arab American community, including those who are resettled refugees and other vulnerable immigrants. The proposed project will annually serve at least 4,000 unduplicated people. The project will significantly enhance ACCESS’s capacity to deliver comprehensive, bilingual treatment in the two communities where Arab Americans predominate (Dearborn and Sterling Heights), during business and non-business hours, and utilizing an ethnic self-help model.
The project features the following innovations:
• Expanded use peer support staff to reach and engage individuals who, for reasons of language and culture, do not seek care from traditional mental health providers
• Specialized behavioral health care team to flexibly treat recently resettled refugees and other vulnerable immigrant communities
• Restructuring the organization’s case management program better address social determinants of health and culturally specific consumer preferences
• Improve the capacity of ACCESS’s Sterling Heights office to meet CCBHC quality criteria
ACCESS will implement all of the CCBHC required activities at the scope and standards outlined in the CCBHC Criteria Compliance Checklist in pursuit of the following objectives:
1. Increase the number of individuals who receive integrated mental health and substance use disorder treatment from two community-based locations, from 2,430 during 2020 to 4,000 by the end of 2022, including 3,200 Arab Americans with SMI/SED, SUD, and COD.
2. Implement linguistically and culturally customized, evidence-based service delivery to improve consumer 6-month retention in treatment from 55% during 2020 to at least 75% by the end of the project period.
3. Launch and maintain a specialized, bilingual / bicultural team that annually reaches and addresses the complex acculturative and post-traumatic behavioral health needs of 220 resettled refugees and other vulnerable immigrant groups.