Action Team #8

Project Name:
Coordinate Access to Care Across the Lifespan

Team Leaders, Members and their Organizational Affiliations:
LEADERS

  • Deb Aldridge – CHIR
  • Karen Goodman – Centra Wellness Network

MEMBERS

  • Randy Koch – Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa, Behavioral Health Manager, Health Department

Additional Partners

  • Christine Gebhard

The system of behavioral health care is largely unaffordable and difficult to navigate. People and providers alike are unaware of the resources available to them and what insurances they accept. Additionally, those with co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorders are often torn between diagnoses – forced to treat one issue before the other as a result of the lack of providers treating both.

Began to identify existing care coordination gaps in the Charlevoix-Emmet region. Distributed a survey to care coordinators to identify the referral network and challenges faced in accessing resources.

Resource navigators in the Charlevoix-Emmet region identified the main barriers to accessing resources in the region as: lack of availability of providers, lack of transportation, and lack of funds. Out of those whose clients have behavioral health needs, 87% identified their home organizations as providing behavioral health services. This indicates that the vast majority of resource navigators who serve clientele with behavioral health needs are connected to an organization that provides those services. Furthermore, 12% of respondents indicated that their organization does not refer clients to other organizations for behavioral health services as they provide them directly.

  • Continue to distribute the survey to care coordinators in the Charlevoix-Emmet region
  • Tackle the barriers identified by the survey
  • Contact us if you are interested in distributing this survey in your region!
SUPPORTING DOCUMENTS