Hope, Healing and Recovery: Integrating Mental Health and Substance Use Treatment Services

There is no question our mental health was significantly impacted by the pandemic over the course of the last three years. By early 2021, approximately two out of five adults reported symptoms consistent with anxiety and depression. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), one in 15 U.S. adults experienced both a substance use disorder and mental illness.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, innovations in mental health and substance use services include telehealth, improved treatment access for opioid use disorders, expansion of school-based mental health care and the rollout of the 988-crisis line. By 2021, nearly 40% of all mental health and substance use disorder outpatient visits were delivered through telehealth.

Despite steps taken to improve the delivery of mental health and substance use services, there are still access challenges such as mental health workforce shortages and funding issues. Some health care providers are embracing integrative treatment, where the clinicians work in one setting and provide appropriate mental health and substance use interventions in a coordinated fashion. The goal is to address both illnesses to help people pursue meaningful life goals.

CentraCare Addiction Services strives to provide integrated treatment with a person-centered, trauma-informed, culturally responsive and recovery-oriented focus for people with additional mental health disorders.

To embody the integrative care model, Addiction Services focuses on providing outpatient individualized treatment planning and therapy options. By meeting people where they are at in their recovery, there are options for different levels of treatment intensity and options for day or evening programming. The skilled multidisciplinary team of caring mental health professionals and experienced counselors in substance use disorder collaborate closely with medical providers to treat the whole person.

The public health emergency from COVID-19 may have ended and people’s physical health is healing from the pandemic, but the lingering mental and emotional effects still need to be addressed. Integrated mental health services is crucial so individuals so can focus on regaining hope, heal and recover.

If you or someone you know is in crisis:

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline – Call or text 988
• Crisis Text Line (24-hours) – Text “MN” to 741741

For more information on CentraCare Addiction Services:

• St. Cloud:320-229-3760
• Willmar:320-441-5202