CCBHC Planning, Development and Implementation grant for Community Service Board of East Central Georgia dba Serenity Behavioral Health Systems - The vision for Serenity Behavioral Health Systems, as a CCBHC, will be to provide trauma informed, person and family-centered services supporting recovery for individuals with, or at risk for, mental illness and/or substance use disorders, regardless of the individual’s ability to pay. Serenity is currently a Community Service Board (CSB) for the state of Georgia which is a Safety Net provider tasked with providing a comprehensive bundle of services to promote recovery in crisis residential, outpatient, and community-based settings. Serenity will be targeting coordinated services to persons in need of care to include those with limited or no access to ongoing mental health and/or substance use services living in Richmond, Columbia, and McDuffie counties in East Central Georgia including children ages 5-17 with diagnoses of depression and veterans or uniformed service members at risk of suicide. The most recently published Census data shows that those three counties have a combined population of 390,772 with 14.75% of that population being uninsured. Within those three counties, 15.48% of families live below the poverty level. Richmond county reflects the highest percentage of families living in poverty (21.4%) and the highest number of uninsured (16.5%). McDuffie County has the 2nd highest number of uninsured individuals, at 16.3% while Columbia County has the second largest population at 162,419 with 7.3% living in poverty and 12.3% uninsured. Results from previous needs assessments completed by community hospitals serving the three counties lists deaths due to despair (which include suicide, drug and alcohol poisoning, and alcoholic liver disease) and poor mental health days as higher than the state and national averages in Richmond and McDuffie counties. It also indicated access to mental health care including inpatient, outpatient, and low-cost care were three of the five most important items for improving the health of community members and mental health was also noted as a problem (lack of resources), cause (trauma, lack of knowledge of resources) and solution (collaboration, telehealth) to the overall health of community members. Mental health and lack of access to mental health services and veterans with PTSD were noted as major issues facing McDuffie County. A need for expanded access and services to rural areas were also noted as a need. Currently serving 2,321 people, Serenity expects to increase access to services and serve two hundred people in year one, two hundred fifty people in year two, three hundred people in year 3 and three hundred fifty people in year 4. The goals of this project include Goal 1: Expand access to mental health and SUD care for individuals in SBHS’ catchment area who are uninsured, have Medicaid and/or are at 150% of the federal poverty level. Goal 2: Establish an integrated primary care program that includes the provision/offering of primary health screening and monitoring, health education, and medication administration while simultaneously initiating the offering of care coordination to reduce care fragmentation for individuals served through the CCBHC. Goal 3: Elevate standards of care through implementation of an outcome-based treatment model that includes staff training in population health management, outcomes-based treatment models, and the use of client-level outcomes measures. Goal 4: Increase veteran engagement and experience of care by providing organization-wide training on military culture and implementing evidence-based practices tailored to veterans and their families. We will also establish key treatment outcomes for clinical programs using tools such as the PHQ-9 and the DLA-20 and develop dashboards and analytics for ongoing tracking of performance indicators.
