Social Services Division Manager Jessica Strong

By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com

While Los Alamos County Council unanimously approved a comprehensive health plan during its regular meeting Dec. 17, Social Services Division Manager Jessica Strong revealed that steps were already taken to improve the physical and mental health of Los Alamos residents.

She explained that before the final plan was presented there was a short-term action plan.

“We have made really good progress on several of the items,” Strong said.

For instance, she reported that Social Services hired an additional case coordination specialist to focus on older adults as well as programs and services for this demographic. Additionally, the plan for distributing the opioid settlement fund was completed and several memorandums of understanding and requests for proposals were sent out for several of the plan’s items. Also, outreach was increased for the Los Alamos Health Council and the County’s Social Services.
Strong highlighted an outreach effort. From 5-8 p.m. Wednesdays at either Mesa Public Library or the White Rock branch library, Social Services staff make themselves available to anyone who may need assistance.

“It has been a remarkable, great way to meet with people who may need Social Services help,” Strong said.

Other accomplishments include working with Self Help, Inc. to update the losalamosmentalhealth.org website. Strong said the website features a listing of mental health workers. Initial steps are being taken for an assisted outpatient treatment court and work is being done for intensive outpatient needs. Research and advocacy are being done for additional telehealth and video health options. Finally, staff training for mental health is being sought.

“So, we feel we are making good progress on the interim health report,” Strong said.

There are still issues to address and to ensure the final heath plan effectively touches on the community’s needs, Strong said a community survey was conducted.

“In order to have a report that gives recommendations we wanted to develop (a) baseline and be able to run the same survey in future years and measure that progress over a longer period of time,” she said. “… so, this health survey formed that baseline.”

There were 1,034 completed surveys. Strong identified some key highlights.

Firstly, the responses showed that overall, Los Alamos is a healthy community. Strong said 85 percent of respondents rated their health as excellent or good.

Furthermore, 99 percent of respondents said they had health insurance and 91 percent had insurance that covered their specific individual needs.

As far as availability of care, dental care scored well and while physical health care’s results were more bell-curved but generally people were satisfied. However, mental and substance use care availability did not score well.

For quality of care, the different categories received the same results, Strong said.

When asked about avoiding care, 35 percent of respondents said they avoided physical health care, 19 percent said they avoided mental and dental care and 1.1 percent said they avoided substance use care. When asked why they avoided care, approximately 70 percent said they couldn’t find a provider, approximately 19 percent said they needed a referral from their primary care physician, and they couldn’t get an appointment and about 15 percent said they couldn’t afford it.

When asked if they sought care outside of Los Alamos, about 66 percent said yes, they went out of town for physical health, about 20 percent left town for mental health and approximately 27 percent left Los Alamos for dental health.

As far as the reasons for leaving Los Alamos for care, approximately 72 percent said they couldn’t find a provider in town, approximately 42 percent said the wait time to see a provider was too long and about 32 percent said the local provider they needed wasn’t accepting new patients.

Survey participants were asked about the challenges they had in the past two years. Between 3 to 9.8 percent of respondents said they had economic challenges to pursuing preventative health treatments, accessing affordable housing, maintaining stable housing, basic living expenses exceeded household income, accessing affordable food and legal support services.

Strong said this is significant.

“To me these numbers seem really high, especially when compared to what I highlighted in those past years,” she said. “(When we ask) have you sought help from the social services office? … what we hear is I didn’t know we had a social service office, or I didn’t know what services you provide at the social service office … there is still a discrepancy between the number of people who reported having these needs and coming into the social services office.”

With all this information, what can the County do? Strong said the health plan has 16 recommendations.

To address availability and accessibility of health care options in Los Alamos:

• Los Alamos County should co-lead the development of a regional, multi-county health plan that takes a comprehensive look at the services and specialties needed.
• Advocate that the state adopts measures to improve availability and retention of medical and behavioral health personnel.
• Partner with the Los Alamos Police Department to create a mobile crisis outreach/response program.
  Increase the availability of mental health and substance-use-related services and trainings and expand the continuum of care options available within the County.
• Partner with regional organizations to expand programming and address barriers to care for mental health and substance use treatment options.

To address economic stability:

• Implement a “no wrong door” policy by utilizing a multi-disciplinary team approach to serve clients.
  Improve and expand the safety net system currently in place to improve coordination, service availability and service delivery.
• To address income, housing and food insecurity:
  Create a plan for what is needed for a co-location or “action center” facility.
  Expand collaboration with other service organizations and providers to assist low-income individuals.
• To address the lack of affordable housing and transportation options:
  Support and advise work in the Community Development Department as well as local and regional partners to expand affordable housing options.
  Support and advise on a regional health transportation plan and work locally to explore ways to expand transportation options as well as funding options.

To address students’ social and emotional needs in schools:

• Continue to support the mental health and substance use work at Los Alamos Public Schools.
  Expand partnerships and collaborations with educational entities.

Council weighed in on the survey findings as well as the plan.

Councilor Randall Ryti wondered about who is being included in the plan; he noted in the plan’s appendix that it mentioned targeted outreach for BIPOC and low-income communities. Strong said it was part of the recommendations in the interim report.

“Implicitly we would like to continue to do outreach to reach different audiences … people who have needs to find a provider that is culturally congruent, we would definitely want to keep doing outreach and additional trainings,” she said.

Councilor David Reagor said in looking at the plan’s recommendations for hiring it seems the problem isn’t so much getting coordinators but finding and retaining providers. Strong said she felt both were important.

“I think addressing the need for additional coordination is important; I think we can also discuss improving and expanding provider capacity if they are able to hire …,” she said.

Regarding the recommendation for the County to co-lead a regional effort, Councilor Suzie Havemann wondered if there were concerns about duplicating other organizations’ efforts.

Strong said it was determined that this is a much bigger issue than one county can take on or fix and there is a desire to encourage a regional approach.

Outgoing Los Alamos Health Council Chair Lori Padilla added, “We are already working regionally in other areas … we work with the LANL Foundation, we work with Las Cumbres … I’m saying that because there are different programs that exist … we all work together.”

Former County Council Chair Denise Derkacs expressed her appreciation toward getting the plan developed.

“This a good path forward for what the County can do to improve our health services in the County,” she said.