Centerstone Receives $2 Million Grant to Continue Providing Comprehensive Community-Based Behavioral Health Services

Centerstone, a national leader in behavioral health care, recently announced it was awarded a $2 million grant extension from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to expand and improve community health care in Southern Illinois. The original grant was awarded in late 2018.

“The grant will continue to improve access to community behavioral health services and will provide an array of integrated primary and behavioral health care services, ensuring access to timely services and improving the health status and outcomes for clients engaged in treatment,” said Nikki Dugger, integrated care manager at Centerstone.

Since the implementation of this grant in 2019, Centerstone has done the following:

• Decreased homelessness by 56% within our client population
• Decreased clients being in a correctional facility by 70%
• Decreased clients going to the emergency department for mental health issues by 58%
• Decreased clients involvement with the criminal justice system by 75%

The goal of this grant will be to continue providing a comprehensive scope of services facilitating whole-person wellness and recovery, improving the health status and outcomes for clients and applying a continuous quality improvement approach to drive outcomes and improvements.

Services for this program will continue to be patient- and family-centered, recovery-oriented, wellness-focused, trauma-informed, and will integrate primary and behavioral care. This program will be used to increase access to and improve the quality of community behavioral health services. It will expand services through the use of evidence-based practices to provide comprehensive community-based mental and substance use disorder services.