Wednesday, February 5, 2025
2/5/2025
One Community Health (OCH), a Federally Qualified Healthcare Clinic (FQHC), has been providing healthcare for the past 36 years in the Pacific Northwest. We provide care to all without question of ability to pay with a focus on the needs of the regions’ racially diverse communities, the Hispanic/Latino/a and American Indians. Our service area of Hood River and Wasco Counties in Oregon and Klickitat and Skamania Counties in Washington are HRSA-defined rural and designated Healthcare Provider Shortage Areas. The 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment of these counties cite behavioral healthcare as an unmet need for all ages and two-thirds of those concerned about their substance use habits were unable to get care. Our school health need assessments paint an alarming picture of above average national trends in mental health and rates of suicide. In 2020/2021, more than half of our high school students reported depression and two-thirds reported stress and anxiety. Suicide rates were high during this same period with 1 out of 4 schoolchildren considering suicide and, and ~1 out of 10 attempted suicide. Concurrent with these mental health statistics is a high incidence of substance abuse, binge drinking and overdose. In addition to the adults and schoolchildren of our service area who need but cannot access mental health, there are also the needs of those to be released from Northern Oregon Corrections Facilities (NORCOR) of Wasco Co, OR, many of whom have SUD but find limited support in the world outside of the jail. Another population which often falls through the cracks of care are the houseless, of whom more than 60% need SUD care. Within each of these focus groups are those that are racially diverse, the Hispanic/Latino/a and American Indians of our region, and our populations of focus as a Migrant and Community Health Center. Together these regional data show an unmet need for mental and substance use disorder (SUD) care. We, as an FQHC with an active H80 grant (FAIN#: H80CS00426), can address this need. With funding we will be able to increase and expand both mental health, and SUD care with Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD) treatment options. We will do this by 3 distinct but interwoven programs managed by a Project Coordinator. Firstly, we will address the needs of our schoolchildren by offering expanded mental health services at our School-Based Health Clinics. Secondly, we will use our Mobile Medical Unit to provide mental health and SUD treatment and recovery services, including MOUD. This unit will be staffed by clinical MOUD and behavioral health providers, and nonclinical support staff, and will provide care at NORCOR, the houseless shelters and communities in our service area and other identified sites of need in our 4-county bi-state service area. The third program will expand our behavioral health services in our Washington clinics, which has a yearlong Behavioral Health waitlist. In our community we are the only MOUD providers and have been part of a network of community-based social support and recovery organizations. With this funding we will increase our referrals to and from these organizations to ensure wraparound integrated behavioral health and SUD care and support for all those in need. Our Coordinator will integrate, implement, and evaluate all 3 arms of this program into a seamless expansion of mental health and SUD services under the OCH umbrella of care.
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).