In The Know – Behavioral Health Services (BHS)

In The Know – Behavioral Health Services (BHS)

[Applause] hi everyone my name is mario and today we’re at the construction site of our new behavioral health services building uh here in sacaton today we’re going to show you a sneak peek of the building and where it’s at on the construction and then also we’re going to talk to some of our behavioral health services team members we’re going to talk about what kind of services are available to the community and how you can access them so come with me and follow along hey everyone so now we’re on the second floor inside the building and i have matt with our construction team here and he’s going to give us a little bit more details about the project hi i’m matt snow with oakland construction i’m the project manager on this job this is a new three-story building that we’re building for the community 48 000 square feet it’s going to be replacing the existing behavioral health building next door starting in december january time period the user group from behavioral health will move into this new building take over and then we’re going to be demolishing that existing building putting in a new parking lot and courtyard area matt thank you for that um maybe from a construction standpoint what are some of the highlights of the project and maybe talk about how it’s been going so the project’s been going really well actually right now we’re a month ahead of schedule we’ve been able to get our substantial completion date to october 31st and at this point we anticipate the user group being able to move in towards the beginning of december as far as some of the really cool features of the building we have a lot of nice finishes inside the building we have the perforated metal ceilings on the exterior we have a lot of metal panel and really cool eefus details that uh create basket weave patterns that are great for the community you know and then as far as the interior usage features they have a lot more rooms in here that are dedicated to certain types of patients so we have play therapy rooms art therapy rooms there’s lots of counseling and office space for the growth of this this division of the hospital so it’s really great well matt thank you for that oversight of the project we’re really proud of where we’re at right now and i’m sure the community is going to enjoy it as well so thank you sir thank you hey everyone so now we’re joined by brian with our behavioral health services team and i’m having him introduce himself my name is brian bennett i am a prevention specialist with gila river healthcare behavioral health services prevention program well thank you brian um brian could you tell us how does vhs connect with our patients people come to behavioral health in a number of ways sometimes they come in on their own sometimes they are referred by a doctor the courts school health counselor or community agency we are here to serve you and we are glad to work with you no matter what way you come through our doors the services are available for any individual that is enrolled in a federally recognized tribe with or without insurance so one of the common questions i hear a lot is are behavioral health services available for children under 18 yes so children under the age of 18 must be with a parent or guardian with proof of guardianship to be accompanied with them just so that all necessary consents are notified and signed brian for our patients who are hesitant to come in to receive services maybe what advice would you give them sometimes counseling may be a bit uncomfortable just because we are exploring areas where difficult emotions happen in our life or areas that we have been trying to avoid our goal is to find new ways and walk through new ways of life to help you and be with you through that part of the process brian i understand one of our big aspects here of behavioral services is actually prevention could you talk about the prevention program and what’s offered to the community the prevention program offers a multitude of different services when it comes to substance use and suicide prevention the way we do that is through utilization of different trainings different sessions community education sessions and then one of our big things is community outreach which we do right now especially during this time of covid virtually so our goal right there is to try and provide as many services as we can in a virtual aspect right now because we want to ensure that the community and the individuals that are part of our services continue to be a part of it during this difficult time if groups or individuals want to learn more about the prevention program they can do by calling behavioral health or they can join the list serve the bhs prevention list serve where they will be sent monthly information about activities events trainings that they can participate in well brian thank you for that information we appreciate your service and uh have a good day sir thank you hi everyone my name is nikkiyah meekins and i’m an assistant director in behavioral health services i’ve been working with the community for about nine years well thank you nikia can you touch on what services are offered by the team we have an abundance of services some of our services include services for children who are on the autistic spectrum that includes our social stars group and our social thinkers for adolescents and teens we have services for couples relationship counseling parent and child counseling family counseling we also have services that focus on substance abuse depression trauma grief domestic violence and much much more well thank you nakia that’s a lot of services that we offer here and that’s great can you tell us you know what is a vhs referral and how are they created a bhs referral is a way for someone to obtain behavioral health services and the way that they are created is either by mail they can call us and initiate a referral by phone or walk into one of our locations thanks nakia can you talk about what what to expect on that initial visit so mario when someone comes in and has their intake appointment and the intake specialist has written up their assessment the clinical team decides what services are most appropriate and we try to find the best case manager or counselor that’s a great fit for you thank you nakia what is the availability of the services we are available monday through friday from 8 to 5 at multiple locations we can be found at the shugai clinic which is on the kamaki health center campus in district 6 we’re also available at the red tail hall clinic as well as the new beginnings building in sakhitan we have 24 7 hour services we have crisis services available at our emergency department in the huluco memorial hospital you can reach us at all times we are available monday through friday 8 to 5 p.m at area code 602-528-7100 we are also available on our crisis line which operates 24 7. well thank you nikia that was a lot of good information have a good day hey everyone so now we’re at uh hopple health center also known as our red tail hot clinic and we’re going to talk with paul with behavioral health services here and learn more about what they offer at this clinic so let’s go my name is paul gibson and i am the clinical manager here at the behavioral health clinic at redtail hawk i’ve been working with gila river healthcare for about 10 years well paul good to see you for our community members who are not familiar with the red tail hot clinic could you tell us a little bit about the department here behavioral health here at red tail hawk has a lot of services and i’m really excited that we can talk about them we have a psychiatry that where we can have people who are able to see doctors and get medications we have case management where we have supports for people who need that extra type of support to be able to help get additional services what we have primarily here is we have therapy we have a lot of good therapists who work here people who’ve worked in the community over 15 years we have people that are working in the community to be able to provide therapy we’re able to address trauma and depression substance abuse we have a substance abuse group that meets twice a week so people are able to get their needs met and get the support that they need from here awesome well thanks paul so for our community members who are hesitant to come in and receive services maybe what would you say to them the staff at behavior health services are trained and understand the importance of confidentiality and all in all what we want is for the community members to be able to feel good about themselves and the life that they leave maybe what advice would you give to our community members if they feel like they have family members who really could use our services i think one of the things i want people to know is that services are available we can’t force people into doing things we can’t force people into change but if we talk about the options if we give them hope that there’s something available something better for them and that this is a place where they can get that help i think that can go a long ways thanks paul what type of appointments are available currently right now with the way things stand we’re able to see people in person and virtually virtually means that we can do it either over the phone or we can do it through video conferencing also right now all of our doctors are seeing their patients virtually some of the things that are important to consider if you’re doing a virtual appointment you want to make sure that you have good coverage for your phone or your computer if you’re doing it virtually on the computer it’s also important to make sure you’re get being able to give it your full attention sometimes people have tried to do a session while they’re driving and we want to make sure that everybody’s safe in traffic and that they’re able to pay attention to what they’re saying and so we discourage doing something like that well paul thank you very much that was great great information sir have a good one you too thanks well big thanks to our behavioral health team for taking time out and sharing information with us i hope you learned a lot and until next time have a good day [Applause] you

In this episode of In the Know, we take a deeper look at the BHS department, a sneak peek inside the new BHS building, and the services they provided.