A new alliance has been formed aimed at improving access to mental health care for patients of the county’s two community health centers.

Porter-Starke Alliance is a collaboration among Hilltop Community Health Center, the Portage Township Community Healthcare Clinic and Porter-Starke Services. Hilltop, located in Valparaiso, provides health care services to low-income residents throughout Porter County except those served by the Portage Township clinic.

Through the alliance, Porter-Starke adult case management coordinator Melissa Speakes visits the two clinics each week to meet with clients, assess their needs and help connect them with mental health services. “I open the front door to Porter-Starke for people,” Speakes said in a statement. “It is often easier for those who need mental health care to access it through a clinic they are comfortable visiting rather than having to make a first visit to a Porter-Starke facility with which they are unfamiliar.”

Services provided through the alliance include intake and evaluation, outpatient referrals for individual or group therapy, medication management, psychiatry, treatment of chemical dependency and addictions, and access to support services including home care, Speakes said.

“This new program furthers our wholeness approach to family health care,” said Beth Wrobel, executive director of Hilltop Community Health Center and interim executive director of Hilltop Neighborhood House. “This countywide cooperative effort will ease patients access to doctors and therapists who can help them cope with emotional and financial problems which can seem overwhelming.”

Jan Wilson, director of the Portage clinic, said the clinic has worked with Porter-Starke to provide counseling for pregnant teens. The new alliance “provides a total support system for individuals and families whose access to mental health services may previously have been hindered by financial constraints or the stigma sometimes attached to mental health treatment,” she said.

Wilson added that massive employment layoffs in Porter County during the past year have increased the need for assistance with emotional, family and health issues. In some situations, case managers visit patients’ homes to facilitate connecting families with community services that can help them.

Posted 11/19/2002