Finding compassionate healthcare can be difficult for some women who suffer from both mental health and substance abuse disorders. But a new treatment option for this population opened up in Portland this week. The Tri County Women’s Stabilization Program offers healthcare, temporary shelter and case management in a setting surrounded by people with lived experience. The Portland nonprofit Bridges to Change partnered with Medicaid provider CareOregon to open the 20-bed care center.
OPB’s All Things Considered host Tiffany Camhi spoke with Hannah Studer, Bridges to Change deputy director, about the new program.
A common area at the grand opening of the Tri-County Women’s Stabilization Program. The nonprofit Bridges to Change transformed a Northeast Portland mansion into a respite center for women with both mental health and substance use disorders.
Bridges to Change / Bridges to Change
Tiffany Camhi: What treatment options have historically been available to women who are experiencing both mental health and substance abuse issues?
Hannah Studer: Historically, it’s been hospitalization or really intensive residential care. So we are in a climate and in a kind of a service landscape where you either get treated for your mental health disorder or your substance use disorder. There are rare programs that are treating both, supporting people in those co-occurring condition needs.
So this program could be the first one in Oregon that we know of, which is really exciting, and one of few in the United States that is offering respite services that are entirely peer-led. This is a new model where we are centering lived experience in the behavioral health stabilization process and really utilizing that lived experience to gain buy-in and trust and know what women in this situation really need.
Camhi: Can you talk a little bit more about the peer respite model? What’s the definition of that?
Studer: So peer respite is a short-term service model that is around 14 days. The hope is that in these 14 days, people will be able to have a safe place to stay. They will have meals prepared for them. They will have peer-led activities. They will have providers internally, like Bridges to Change, coming to the house providing behavioral health services and case managing folks to long-term care. And Bridges to Change is partnering with hospitals and medical centers for that behavioral health care and substance abuse portion.
Camhi: My understanding is that women who are enrolled in Medicaid, through the nonprofit CareOregon, are eligible for this new program. Are there any other eligibility requirements?
Studer: There’s not. So really we are serving folks with CareOregon insurance and we’re serving folks who maybe need help accessing insurance. So we are going to be at the lowest barrier that we can be as a program, knowing that people are experiencing long waits to care. We’re hoping that this is an opportunity to connect people rapidly and to get them to the next place.
Camhi: Mental health and substance abuse issues often overlap but it can be difficult for patients to find treatment for both at the same time. Why is it important to treat these issues together?
Studer: Not only do they overlap frequently, it’s the majority. We know that people’s health conditions, mental health conditions are not separate inside of them. They are one person. And so we are really using this as a whole-person care model to say that we’re going to support someone in their entire personhood, their entire need. There are often barriers to housing, adequate income and employment that are advancing substance use disorder and mental health conditions. And we know, especially since the pandemic, that it’s been really, really hard to get services. So we’re excited to hopefully be a hub of service for women in our community. This truly is a holistic offering of care through lived experience. It gives community members the opportunity to have their whole personhood valued, seen and taken very seriously.
Camhi: What happens to women after those two weeks at the program are up?
Studer: The hope is to really connect people to services that can support them long term. This is not a program that is going to connect you to your forever housing, because there’s long wait lists right now for people who are at risk of losing their housing, losing their spot in their residential program or who are at risk of having significant or serious complications in their life because of their co-occurring conditions. This program offers a kind of a stopgap to say, “How can we support you? How can we wrap around you and prevent ongoing harm and potential losses of existing resources?”