By GLYNIS HART
[email protected]
NEWPORT — The Sullivan County Board of Commissioners accepted bids Monday night for a new website, utility pole replacement, and plans for transitional housing, as well as hearing updates from three non-profits that receive money from community grants.
The directors of TLC Family Resource Center, Turning Points Network, and West Central Behavioral Health updated the board on their activities.
TLC Family Resource Center received a $30,000 grant for Child Abuse Prevention Services and a Personal Responsibility and Education Program. Director Maggie Monroe-Cassel said this year’s funding went to the SHINE program, a teen pregnancy and STD prevention program in middle and high schools in Sullivan County.
“We work with ages 16 to 21,” said Monroe-Cassel, “to give comprehensive and good information not just about sexual health but relationships in general. We got a vehicle this year, the SHINE van, and we are very close to having it wrapped and out on the streets.”
“Our parent support groups are thriving,” she continued. “This year we counted over 2,000 completed visits. A lot of the parenting stuff now is opioid abuse related, so we are overlapping with the new Center for Recovery Resources. We have a support group for parents in recovery in the jail; we’ve also started a Safe Babies Court. The judge, Judge Yacinski, takes off his black robes and comes and sits at a table with the families. The idea is to move children faster through the system, instead of it taking three or four years for children to go through foster care.”
Turning Points Network, which received a grant for $65,000, works with families affected by domestic violence. Director Deborah Mozden said they served about 900 people last year, and the number increased this year.
“We’re starting a child-abuse prevention program,” she said. “Our budget increased this year over what we thought it would because we increased our advocate pay; it was the lowest in the state of New Hampshire. We also needed an additional 20-hour advocate for the schools. We just hired a development director to diversify our funding, which is also the start of succession planning. I’ll be there another three or four years.”
Mozden said TPN is ontrack to meet its funding goal of $265,000 this year. “We have outgrown our space and will be moving,” she said, although they don’t know where to.
She said TPN is also planning to start a for-profit venture to support its funding needs.
Finally, Suellen Griffin of West Central Behavioral Health, which received a $10,000 grant, reported on the new addiction treatment clinic that opened this summer on Elm Street.
“I thought we would be pushing people away, but that’s not the case. We need to do some more work on outreach,” said Griffin. “The majority of our patients are insured; it’s not like it’s the Medicaid population. We have a grant for those who don’t have insurance and can’t pay for care, but we haven’t had to tap into it yet.”
The clinic provides mental health care and substance abuse treatment.
“Opioids are the squeaky wheel right now,” said Commissioner Ben Nelson. “I’m glad to see you’re not forgetting the others.”
Griffin agreed, noting that federal and state funding is available currently because of the opioid crisis. “Alcohol is even more of a problem, but they’re not dropping dead on the streets. Well, they are dropping dead, but it’s more chronic.”
She said last year WCBH had more people leaving the program than entering, which tipped the balance the other way. For years they’d been turning people away because they didn’t have the staff to treat them, she said. Now people expect a long waiting list. “We’ve trained them not to turn to us,” she said.
“We have to do outreach,” said Griffin.
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