You are here > Home > Programs & Services > Treatment & Community Support > Mental Health > For Adults
Adult Mental Health Services
We provide a broad range of assessment and treatment services for adult mental health problems. Services are chosen in partnership with the individual and planned to assure close coordination among the specific services, agencies, and individuals who are involved. Each service plan takes into account information about which services are likely to be most helpful for particular problems and most cost-effective.
Referrals
We accept referrals for assessment of individual adult problems from a wide variety of sources, including self-referrals, primary-care providers, courts, inpatient psychiatric services, and social service agencies.
Assessment and Treatment Planning
When we make contact with the referred individual, one of our clinicians makes an appointment to evaluate his or her problems, needs, and strengths. When appropriate to the problems being assessed, a staff psychiatrist also provides an evaluation of whether medication is recommended as part of treatment.
The assessment may result in treatment by our staff or referrals for treatment by another agency when there is need for services that we do not provide, e.g., inpatient care or residential treatment.
Treatment
Psychotherapy
We offer a wide variety of modes of individual psychotherapy. Some individuals who participate in individual psychotherapy also participate in group treatment, and/or receive outreach services to assist them in coping with their particular problems in the community. For individuals who have substance abuse problems in addition to mental health problems, their individual psychotherapy may be combined with psycho-educational interventions to address both kinds of problems.
Medication
When a client’s treatment plan involves our psychiatrists prescribing medication, the client also participates in group meetings where his/her experience with the medication can be reviewed on an ongoing basis. In addition, the client is seen in individual and/or group psychotherapy.
Group treatment
Our clinicians offer group treatment that addresses a wide variety of interests and problems. The groups vary in their size and their use of informal conversations, discussions, educational materials, and expressive activities.
Access to services
Our offices are located on major public transportation routes and are handicapped accessible.
Our switchboard coordinates calls for all our sites and services.
For individuals who are registered as clients of our agency, crisis intervention is available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week through a combination of:
- Intervention by our staff during regular hours of clinic operation
- Close collaboration with the Cambridge-Somerville Crisis Team (based at Cambridge Hospital)
- A live answering service outside of regular hours, which directs emergencies to the Cambridge-Somerville Crisis Team, which can contact our clinicians as needed
Services during regular hours of operation
A team of three clinicians provides: 1) intake screening and referral and 2) walk-in and urgent care services.
- This team actively assists individuals and providers in gaining timely access to our agency’s system of care.
- For all adults who are registered as clients of our clinical services, this Walk In service backs up the other services by responding to short-term, urgent care needs. For this purpose, it is available between 10 am and 2 pm five days per week to respond to individuals who cannot wait for the availability of services by their regular clinician.
This team works in very close collaboration with the Cambridge-Somerville Crisis Team, inpatient units, and other referring agencies. Our team responds to new referrals needing urgent care by arranging for intake and medication evaluation within 2 or 3 days. This provides back-up for our clinicians when they need a place to refer a individual who is in crisis. Individuals registered in our clinic may use the walk-in team to gain some support during a period of stress, or, if the problem is more serious, may come for help in accessing the Cambridge-Somerville Crisis Team.
When a client needs support outside the hours of the walk-in clinic, the individual is asked whether he/she can wait until 10 a.m. the next day. If the individual cannot, he/she is referred with our active assistance to the Cambridge-Somerville Crisis Team for immediate response. For some people in crisis, our acute care team has the capacity to provide intensive, daily services to avoid hospitalization and to support stabilization in their residential programs. Our acute care team keeps in close contact with the individual’s primary clinician on intervention decisions. Which cases are appropriate for hospital diversion by our staff is worked out in close collaboration with the Cambridge-Somerville Crisis Team.
Access to services outside regular hours of operation
Outside of regular hours, calls to the agency are answered by a live answering service which directs emergencies to the Cambridge-Somerville Crisis Team at the Cambridge Hospital. This Crisis Team provides immediate assessments of the need for hospitalization and provides hospital diversion whenever possible. Our clinical staff are available to the Crisis Team for phone consultations as needed for dispositions and follow-up appointments.
Intensive Case-Management
A Community Support Team of two full-time paraprofessionals supervised by a Clinical Social Worker provides extensive outreach, support, and service coordination for consumers who have been identified by the Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership as using emergency rooms and acute in-patient services to an unusually high degree. They are referred by the Partnership when it appears that intensive outreach and case management might help them develop ways of managing their problems that rely less heavily on acute services.
The services consist of extensive outreach visits to assist individuals to find and use resources in the community that contribute to their safety and competence. These range from adequate housing, to medical care, to outlets for used-clothing, along with encouragement for making health-promoting choices, including asking for help before a crisis develops.
The team members are available to respond to crises through outreach, our walk-in service, and our after-hours liaison with the Cambridge-Somerville Crisis Team. They are backed up by the entire staff of adult clinicians. The program is funded through a contract from the Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership.
A team of 5 other paraprofessional outreach workers, called Community Rehabilitative Support workers, provides this kind of case management for individuals who are referred by the Department of Mental Health.
|
