Mental Health Facility: Case Study

Assessment of Mental Health Facility: PORT Human Services (Kinston Outpatient Clinic)
Tonya Robinson
COUN 5336

Substance abuse seems to be one of the rising epidemics in Eastern North Carolina. There have been an increased number of arrests being made as a result of drug and substance abuse. With limited resources, PORT Human Services is one of the very few and one of the most successful organizations to provide mental health and substance abuse services in eastern North Carolina. PORT Human Services provides a number of preventive and recovery resources for mental health and substance abuse. An assessment of PORT Human Services will be conducted which will include components such as persons who are eligible for services,
cultural competence of staff members will be evaluated, public polies that apply to the organization will be introduced and evaluation of the organization efforts to bring awareness to the small communities of eastern North Carolina. Through the assessment, the goal is to highlight this organization 's past and previous efforts to provide treatment and care to individuals of all populations in general.
Description of PORT Human Services
The organizations serve individuals from all walks of life. Mental health/substance abuse services are provided to children and adults.
All individuals are eligible for the services and through the partnership Eastpointe, which is the organization that identifies state funds and provide it to individuals such as illegal immigrants with no cost involved or individuals with no health insurance. Many of the efforts of the organization go towards providing affordable or free of cost, care and treatment for individuals that are willing to help themselves. PORT Human Services recently started incorporating commercial advertising as a form of making a public service announcement. The advertisement discussed, treatment options for individuals suffering with substance abuse. The organization also hosts community events to raise awareness about mental health and substance abuse. Clients receive education through prevention and outreach initiatives. One of the most successful outreach initiatives that this organization has coordinated was holding an educational session on HIV/ AIDS awareness. This program also provided information to the general public about the many services that the organization has. PORT Human Services provides counseling services to children, adults and families. This organization specializes in the Substance Abuse Intensive
Outpatient Program (SAIOP). The counseling staff all come from various cultural and geographical backgrounds. Staff members also have various certification/licensure that is a representation of evidence based practices. In this organization, staff members are required to receive training that focuses on working with diverse populations. Clinicians do offer supervision to other professionals, one staff member is a Global Appraiser of Individual needs which entitles the staff member to make recommendations about juvenile clients that need to be evaluated and treatment. Since eastern North Carolina is small, advocating measures come by word of mouth or through connecting with agencies who make referrals. The public policy that is relevant to the organization and its population is the NC Division of Mental Health and Substance Abuse developed a policy and funding to provide appropriate care and treatment to all individuals who are seeking mental health and substance abuse services. The funding source is known as “State Dollars”. With this funding PORT Human Services continues to be a great resource for individuals that are seeking help to live beyond their addictions and start a new life.
Social justice is a very important component of the counseling profession. It should be a counselor’s mission to bring awareness to the general public about issues that presents any form of inequality. Lopez-Baez & Paylo (2009) states that a counseling professionals can begin advocating by being “an ally to others in the school/community or take on a leadership position to achieve desired change that is needed in the school/community” (Lopez-Baez & Paylo, 2009). If a counselor is an ally, they are working in conjunction with other initiatives to bring about a change in social justice. A counselor assuming the leadership role finds initiatives to work closely with to actively make a change in social justice. However, before a counselor can be successful in advocating for social justice, a counselor must be culturally competent. Cultural competence is a counselor’s “ability to engage in actions or create conditions that maximize the optimal development of client and client systems” (Sue& Sue, pp. 49, 2013). By not being culturally competent, a counselor can cause clients to refrain from counseling or any other resources. A counselor to have knowledge of various cultural beliefs, values, and traditions in order to be an effective counselor when working with diverse populations. Cultural competence has a direct correlation to advocating for social justice.
PORT Human Services manifests cultural competence because most of their programming focused on raising awareness of issues that individuals that are minorities are faced with daily.
They have conducted workshops geared towards racial injustices, drugs/gang activity, teaching individuals in diverse populations how to find resources in the community, sex education and health workshops about the number one diseases that pledge individuals in diverse populations. Due to the health workshops, there have been many small initiatives throughout the city of Kinston that seek to prevent health problems and promote a healthy lifestyle. One imitative that is helping is that the public library is offering Zumba, tai chi, and yoga to promote healthy living. Port Human Services continues to work on providing programming to raise awareness and prevention to individuals in diverse populations. One staff member implied that she enjoys advocating for individuals in diverse populations because she knows that she is contributing in the process of change for individuals in diverse populations. In the future, I plan to work with the organization for some programming for teens in the community about issues that teens in this generation face
daily.
PORT Human Services provides services to individuals from any cultural background and has staff members that have been trained for multicultural counseling. As a counselor at this organization, I would advocate for teens of diverse populations. Teens of diverse populations are a special interest because do not have anyone that is providing them with prevention programming. As a counselor working with this organization, I would incorporate community collaboration and systems competency to promote social justice. Many teens of minorities in our community do not have the means of getting to resources because of transportation issues. As a counselor working in PORT Human Services, I would make sure that monthly community events are in location that are easily accessible to teens and that the focus of the programming will be to let teens be aware that there are some people in the community that are concerned about their issues. There is a location club formed by teens called Kinston Teens and they have worked with PORT Human Services along with Eastpointe to do a workshop series on police brutality and how to approach an officer so it will not occur. It was very helpful to teens of color, particularly due to the current issues arising in the news such as the Trayvon Martin case. The way I would enhance the cultural proficiency of the organization, I would conduct evidence based research of the new policies and practices that have presented in multicultural counseling and effectively apply them to future invention and programming of the organization (Work Group for Community Health and Development, 2014). In changing policies it will allow for the organization to cater more to the needs of individuals of diverse populations. In the education system, the curriculums often do not assist students of diverse populations. While working with this organization, I would make time to go to schools and talk to the school counselors about the most common issues they see teens dealing with and I would work with the counselors to provide students with opportunities that can enhance their quality of life. One of the many downfalls of the education system is they are not incorporating life skills along with academic. As a counselor, I would only make one change and that would be to increase the general public knowledge of the organization and the resources in which it provides for individuals of all cultural backgrounds. I would do by using more advertising techniques such as social media, TV, and radio. By finding ways to promote this organization, there will be more opportunities to help those that are in need. It is important that a mental health organization or facility provides awareness about the current problems that seem to be common trends amongst the community. Raising awareness is one of the most important aspects of advocating for social justice. Because by raising awareness to the general public it allows for the counselor or the organization to have a platform in the process in making a change. PORT Human Services is an organization that promotes community collaboration in order to raise awareness and to provide preventive measures to adults and children. After conducting this assessment, I would like to work with this organization and maybe see if I could intern there for completion of this graduate program.

References
Lopez-Baez, S., & Paylo, M. J. (2009). Social justice advocacy: Community collaboration and systems advocacy. Journal of Counseling and Development: JCD, 87 (3), 27
Sue, D.W., & Sue, D. (2013). Counseling the culturally diverse: Theory and practice. (6th Ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Work Group for Community Health and Development (2014). Enhancing Cultural Competence. Community Tool Box. University of Kansas. Retrieved from http://ctb.ku.edu/en/enhancing-cultural-competence