Alexian Brothers Center for Mental Health expands services to address community needs

Responding to a variety of community needs, Alexian Brothers Center for Mental Health is expanding its supported-education and supported housing programs, adding a day hospitalization program, establishing medical psychotherapy groups in nursing homes, and providing access to clinical trials of advanced medicines.

Under an agreement with Harper College for Businesses, the Arlington Heights, Ill., center last fall expanded its supported-education program by offering an eight-week, college-level course called "Orientation 101" to help clients clarify their reasons for enrolling in college and learn strategies for adapting to the college environment. "Clients who complete the course receive one college credit," says Scott Burgess, the center's Executive Director. "We're hoping it's a starting point to offering more classes at the center."

The center has provided supported education services since 2006, helping clients with severe behavioral health or
emotional issues to obtain their GED, to begin or resume their post-secondary education, and to develop good study habits. The program offers tuition stipends and transportation for clients, who also receive guidance from an education coach.

The center is expanding its supported-housing program through collaborations with Catholic Charities and the State of Illinois. Under a partnership with Catholic Charities, the center will provide  apartments with rent subsidies from the federal government and support services from the center for six homeless people with mental illnesses, beginning next June. That number could grow to 12 next fall, pending approval of additional federal subsidies. The center also has been invited to participate in 2009 in the state's new permanent supportive housing program, which seeks to find housing for 177 nursing home residents with mental illnesses who are capable of living independently with some assistance. "What it means for us depends on the number of clients who want to live in our area," Burgess says. By early November, the center already had begun searching for an apartment for one applicant referred by the state.

Scheduled to be launched in early January, the center's day hospitalization program is expected to serve 10 to 12
clients five days a week, for two to four weeks per client, at a facility across the street from the center. The program will offer individual and group therapy to prepare clients recently released from the hospital to handle daily living activities, says Brett Hall, the center's Vice President of Program Development. The program also is designed to provide intensive support to individuals in crisis to help them avoid hospitalization, Hall says. The program will address "a big community need," Burgess says.

The center began offering group psychotherapy in nursing homes last August, and the program has grown rapidly,
Burgess says. Six local nursing homes were participating in the program by early November, and more are expected to sign up in 2009, Burgess says. The program, he adds, targets people with serious mental illnesses who have ended up in nursing homes because scaled-back state psychiatric hospitals no longer could accommodate them. A part-time psychiatrist and a licensed clinical social worker conduct the group sessions, and plans call for adding another part-time psychiatrist as the program grows.

In early 2009, the center is slated to become a secondary clinic site for clinical trials offered by the Center for Psychiatric Francine McGouey, shown with Scott Burgess (center) and Brett Hall, says ABHN is "looking at all integration opportunities within our behavioral health continuum that maximize synergies and optimize access and care for those in need." Research at Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital (ABBHH) in Hoffman Estates, Ill. About 20 clinical trials of advanced medicine are under way at ABBHH, and having a secondary site will be a convenience that should enable more people to participate, Burgess says.

Extending the clinical trials to the Alexian Brothers Center for Mental Health reflects Alexian Brothers Hospital Network's strategy of "looking at all integration opportunities within our behavioral health continuum that maximize synergies and optimize access and care for those in need," says Francine McGouey, ABBHH Chief Executive Officer. "Within this process, we will be certain to protect and advance the key mission and critical core services that the community mental health center provides."

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