SEARHC is continuing to expand its behavioral health services in Sitka and to serve residents of other Southeast communities, an official of the health care provider recently told the Sitka borough assembly.
“I wanted to bring your attention to some of the changes, the evolution of the behavioral health service line at SEARHC,” said Dr. Elliot Bruhl, senior vice president and chief medical officer at the Sitka-based SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium.
He called behavioral health “one of our number of areas of emphasis in terms of our current expansion and development.”
Behavioral health services offered in Sitka, he said, include medication management for various diagnoses (depression, anxiety, trauma, attention deficit order, bipolar, schizophrenia, opioid and alcohol use disorder); adult, adolescent and children’s individual, group and family counseling; and intensive individual, family and group substance use counseling; and case management.
On staff in Sitka are a board-certified psychiatrist, a board-certified psychiatric physician assistant, part-time board-certified child psychiatrists, nine behavioral health counselors, three substance abuse counselors, two behavioral health case managers, and five behavioral aides, Bruhl said.
In addition, the Raven’s Way adolescent program has a staff of 25, including counselors, case managers, aides and support staff.
SEARHC provides health care services in 19 Southeast communities. It employs five full-time behavioral health workers in Haines: two counselors, a substance abuse counselor and two support staff. SEARHC also offers Haines residents telehealth appointments with board-certified psychiatrists.
“We continually assess demand for services in our SEARHC communities and make adjustments to staff and programs to support the community need,” spokesperson Lyndsey Schaefer said in an email to the CVN.
She said there isn’t currently a waitlist for behavioral health services in Haines.
Juneau’s Bartlett Regional Hospital last summer announced that it would open a Haines mental health care office in response to a letter from the borough citing increased demand after the deadly December 2020 landslide and from the pandemic. But the hospital delayed its plans indefinitely last fall following the sudden resignations of the hospital’s chief executive and chief behavioral officer.
SEARHC also is looking into developing an opioid-use disorder program in Sitka, in addition to the existing adult intensive substance abuse treatment here. A new SEARHC opioid treatment program in Juneau has been “very, very successful,” Bruhl said.
“This program is open to patients from all around Southeast Alaska,” Bruhl said. “It provides both individual and group counseling for substance abuse dependence — the most common being alcoholism. We also provide treatment for things like methamphetamine and opioids.”
The treatment program has a residential-based option for those who “need to remove themselves from the environment where they’re struggling, but it’s not mandatory,” Bruhl said. “One of the great advantages of that is that people who have a job or are moms and have children can participate in person or virtually.”
Bruhl also told the assembly about the expansion in Sitka of Raven’s Way, an accredited 60-day intensive substance use treatment program for youths age 13 to 18.
“We’re excited about that going from 12 to 24 residents,” he said.
The program includes conventional substance abuse counseling, adventure and wilderness therapy, classroom-based education and traditional Native cultural activities.