Certified Community Behavioral Health Center Opening in Wasilla
arlawka aungtun | istock
Alaska Behavioral Health is opening a new Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) near downtown Wasilla, addressing a shortage of services in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough.
Coming in April
CCBHCs offer crisis services, screening and evaluation, outpatient mental health, primary care screening and monitoring, client-centered treatment planning, targeted case management, psychiatric rehabilitation services, and peer and family supports. The clinic at 351 West Parks Highway, across from Lake Lucille, is slated to open April 1.
Expanding services to the Mat-Su has long been a goal of the organization, according to COO Joshua Arvidson. “We’ve been painfully aware of the shortage of behavioral health services in the Mat-Su for a long time. We have clients that drive over three hours (round-trip) from the Mat-Su to get their services in our Anchorage clinics,” Arvidson says. “Bringing our services to people who need it in Alaska’s fastest growing region is something I am very excited about.”
Alaska Behavioral Health became one of Alaska’s first CCBHCs in 2020 with federal funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Under that grant, Alaska Behavioral Health worked to develop new services to meet the critical shortage of treatment options, improve access to treatments, expand and develop the workforce, and improve primary care integration and psychiatric medical practices.
In September 2022, SAMHSA awarded additional funding for Alaska Behavioral Health to open the new CCBHC in Wasilla, in addition to an “Improvement and Advancement” grant to continue to develop and implement evidence-based treatments at its CCBHC clinics in Anchorage and Fairbanks.
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