State funding cuts force Haines mental health provider to merge with SEARHC

Lynn Canal Counseling Services in Haines will merge with SEARHC. (Photo from KHNS)
Lynn Canal Counseling Services in Haines will merge with SEARHC. (Photo from KHNS)

A Haines nonprofit that has provided behavioral health care in the Upper Lynn Canal for 30 years is consolidating with the local tribal health center because of state budget reductions and an increased demand for services.

Lynn Canal Counseling Services and the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium will merge in October. The local counseling office will essentially become a behavioral health department of SEARHC.

LCCS Executive Director Kelly Williamson says the road to consolidation began last October. She found out that a grant which makes up 40 percent of the service’s budget was set to be drastically reduced in FY 17. The grant is Alaska’s Comprehensive Behavioral Health Treatment and Recovery Grant, which Williamson says provides LCCS with $275,000.

Williamson says the grant uncertainty, along with looming proposed cuts to Medicaid, made her worry about how the nonprofit could withstand that kind of shortfall.

“I was sad, as a clinician, just because I’m so passionate about what I do as a therapist and I truly care about people that are struggling,” Williamson said. “It was really frightening to think that this community may not be cared for in a way that it deserves to be cared for.”

LCCS board of directors Chair Jansy Hansen says, at the same time, the counseling service has seen an increase in demand for behavioral health care among resident of Haines, Klukwan and Skagway.

“The last year or so there’s been a huge demand for services in this community, and we’ve had a hard time keeping up with it,” Hansen said. “There’s a big need here.”

Directors of both organizations say they feel consolidation is the most responsible thing to do for the community. By taking away duplicative services and streamlining behavioral health care, there will be better and even expanded services in Haines, they say.

The tribal health consortium’s CEO, Dan Neumeister, says Lynn Canal Counseling Services will keep its name despite the consolidation.

“What we are very pleased with is Lynn Canal Counseling has done a great job,” said Neumeister. “[They] created a legacy for who they are. We want to respect that, honor that and also continue the name. Lynn Canal Counseling will basically be a behavioral health department within SEARHC.”

Both organizations say they will jointly offer services that include therapy and case management, children’s services, crisis intervention and urgent care, substance abuse counseling and prevention, psychiatric care, outpatient substance abuse treatment, and psychological testing.

Lynn Canal Counseling clients will be able to continue seeing their same case managers or clinicians.

The boards of directors for LCCS and SEARHC both voted unanimously for the consolidation. Lynn Canal Counseling Director Williamson employees were told of the change Tuesday, shortly before a press release was sent out.

“There’s some concern; change is very scary for people,” Williamson said. “We made a concentrated effort to try and reduce the amount of anxiety and fear and concerns. I think there’s a lot of excitement to bring it together.”

Williamson says the fear that she felt after learning of the financial uncertainty last fall has diminished.

“I have such a sense of relief just knowing that the people in this community who need our services aren’t going to go without,” she said. “I’m thrilled and I’m just so relieved that we’re getting ahead of it. Instead of waiting for the boulder to fall next year we’ll have rolled ahead of that and we’ll be here and we’ll be good and no one will [go without services].”

The transition is expected to be complete by Oct. 1. Juneau’s SEARHC clinic opened the doors of its mental health clinic to non-Natives in June.

 

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