Monthly Archives: January 2015

Crisis Collaboration Work Moving Forward

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The Behavioral Health & Recovery Services Crisis Collaboration Workgroup met for the third time this past week and a diverse group of service providers within San Mateo County were in attendance. Representatives from:  BHRS, Law Enforcement, School Districts, San Mateo Medical Center, Mills Hospital, V.A., NAMI, Probation, Emergency Medical Services, Mid-Pen Housing, crisis line providers, crisis response non-profits and several others came together with the goal to:  Read more

3rd Annual Parent Project Reunion Celebrates in Style

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PPReunion

Last Friday January 23, the Office of Diversity and Equity hosted it’s 3rd Annual Parent Project® Reunion. The Reunion is held each year in January as a way to bring together all graduates of the Parent Project® to celebrate their achievements, reunite with classmates and facilitators, hear about upcoming opportunities, and enjoy a joyous night together! This year’s celebration featured dinner, raffles, speeches from graduates, and a wonderful band from Half Moon Bay led by graduates from Adult Mental Health First Aid and Parent Project®.  The band provided music to listen and dance to throughout the entire evening.

The event was supported by BHRS Director Stephen Kaplan, many of our Health Equity Initiatives (PRIDE, Native American Initiative, Pacific Islander Initiative, Diversity and Equity Council, Filipino Mental Health Initiative, Spirituality Initiative, Latino Collaborative, and African American Community Initiative), and other BHRS Staff. Over 100 parents and children attended this year making it a very memorable night.

One parent who spoke, Mylene Rodriguez, credited graduating from the Parent Project® with opening many doors to help and empower her get back on track to achieving goals for herself and her family.

If you’d like to learn more about upcoming Parent Project® courses beginning in February throughout San Mateo County,  visit our webpage or contact Maggie Furey at c_mfurey@smcgov.org.

Feb. 10th Grand Rounds: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Psychosis

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San Mateo County Psychiatric Grand Rounds

Date: Tuesday, February 10th
Time: 12:15 – 1:30 p.m.
Location: 225 West 37th Avenue – Multipurpose Room 100, San Mateo

“COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY FOR PSYCHOSIS”
Presented by: Kate Hardy, Clin.Psych.D.
Clinical Assistant Professor, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California

Flyer: Psych Grand Rounds February 2015

Open to public. Questions? Call 650-573-2530

California Clubhouse Seeks Executive Director

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California Clubhouse,  a community-based organization currently located in San Mateo where
people with mental illness can go every day during business hours to work on overcoming the obstacles they face, is currently recruiting for an Executive Director.  See the job posting for more info.

Request for Letters of Interest for Patient Rights Advocacy Services

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Behavioral Health and Recovery Services is conducting a survey to determine whether organizations/agencies are interested in submitting proposals if a Request for Proposals (RFP) is issued to provide Patient Rights Advocacy Services for all recipients of mental health services in San Mateo County. If sufficient interest is demonstrated, an RFP will be issued. If only one organization/agency responds to this Request for Letters of Interest,BHRS could begin negotiating a contract immediately.  More info.

Jan. 27th Grand Rounds: Updates in Emergency Psychiatry

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San Mateo County Psychiatric Grand Rounds

Date: Tuesday, January 27th
Time: 12:15 – 1:30 p.m.
Location: 225 West 37th Avenue – Multipurpose Room 100, San Mateo

“UPDATES IN EMERGENCY PSYCHIATRY”
Presented by: John Furman, M.D. Psychiatrist, San Mateo Medical Center, San Mateo County, California

Flyer: Psych Grand Rounds January 2015

Open to the public. Questions? Call 650-573-2530

Upcoming BHRS Trainings

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1. Wednesday, January 21st, 9am-12:30pm, Sobrato Center, Redwood City–Working with the Arab and Arab American Community: A culturally relevant, sensitive, and competent approach.
The Office of Diversity and Equity has been engaging different stakeholders in the Arab and Arab American community to address the needs of this rapidly growing community in San Mateo County. A small group of dedicated clinicians, community members, and organizers have come together to create this thoughtful and informative training. And, there will be Middle Eastern refreshments from 12pm-12:30pm! Please join us! (See attached flier for details.)
2. Tuesday, February 3rd, 8:30am-12:00pm, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, San Mateo– Spirituality 102: Bridging Spirituality in Clinical Care/Emphasizing Clinical Interventions. (See attached flier for details). The Spirituality initiative has developed this great training to help clinicians integrate and address spirituality in treatment. Don’t miss it!
3. Thursday, February 5th and Friday, February 6th, 8:30am-4:30pm, Sobrato Center, Redwood City–Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST). If interested and able to attend, please complete and submit the attached application to Kim Westrick at c_kwestrick@smcgov.org by Monday, 1/12/15. (See attached application for details.) Space is very limited.

Access to Services is Growing

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On December 31st we completed the first year of implementing a new benefit for individuals who are Medi-Cal beneficiaries and have mental health conditions that are determined to be more “moderate” than those living with a serious mental illness. Legislation passed in late 2013 delegated the responsibility for providing services to this population to the Medi-Cal Managed Care Plans, in San Mateo that is the Health Plan of San Mateo (HPSM).

Health Plans, with this new responsibility, needed to quickly figure out how to make these services available to their beneficiaries. In many, if not most counties, the Health Plans contracted out those responsibilities to private behavioral health companies. In San Mateo, because of our longstanding and close working relationship with HPSM, they decided to delegate the administration and delivery of these services to BHRS.

With the implementation of this benefit we are seeing a significant increase in access to services. Our Call Center handled almost 5,000 more calls than in the prior 12 months. A 38% increase.  More than 1,000 referrals to our network of providers were made in the first six months of last year which equalled the number of referrals made over the prior 18 month period. These numbers clearly demonstrate the need for mental health services within the population and that those in need are receiving the information to make contact for services.

As we continue to work on improving access to services there are some important challenges  we will need to work on this year including: responding in a timely manner to calls coming into the Call Center; reducing the length of time from the call to a first appointment; increasing the number of psychiatrists; ensuring that our network of providers can respond to the language diversity in the county; and making sure that providers are available throughout all regions of the county.

Thanks to the outstanding work from HPSM staff, BHRS Call Center and Administrative staff. We expect this upward trend in accessing mental health services to continue through this year….and that is a good thing!

 

2014-2015 Cultural Stipend Internship Program Off to a Great Start

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The BHRS Cultural Stipend Internship Program (CSIP) awarded $5000 stipends to 18 exceptional BHRS trainees for the 2014-2015 training year. Our diverse group of interns were selected based on their experience within the area of cultural diversity and their commitment to improve BHRS’s capacity to serve marginalized communities; such as communities of color, LGBTQQI2S (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Questioning Intersex Two Spirit) communities, people with disabilities, and those with lived experience as a client/consumer or family member of behavioral health services. The goal of the stipend program is to support interns in their efforts to enhance BHRS’s services for clients who come from the aforementioned communities. These communities are of particular importance as they have disproportionately high rates of mental health issues and alcohol and other drug use in addition to related issues such as incarceration, homelessness, medical issues and historical trauma. Stipend awardees use their identification with, and knowledge of these communities to design individual year-long cultural competency projects to help obtain our mutual goal of increasing health equity within BHRS services.

Awardees final projects range from:

  • Strengthening language access
  • Surveying providers about incorporating spirituality into clinical work
  • Conducting focus groups to uncover barriers that are impeding service attainment for the African American community
  • Facilitating a 10-session support group oriented towards Latina youth in the juvenile justice system
  • Conducting a 3-session Chinese language mental health series for parents of Chinese youth at Mills High School
  • Facilitating Photovoice, a photography-based empowerment workshop, for young Arab women

In addition, trainees participate in 2 capacity-building trainings on Cultural Humility and Working Well with Interpreters, attend monthly meetings as an active member of one of the nine Health Equity Initiatives, and deliver an oral presentation at the end of their internship, summarizing their final project. Interns devote an average 8 hours per month to their CSIP activities with the support of Office of Diversity and Equity and their clinical supervisors.

CSIP Applications are available in the spring. For more information, contact Kim Westrick at c_kwestrick@smcgov.org or 650-573-2565.