News from Wheeler

"People are dying. And I don't want to be a statistic."

Wheeler’s evolution of integrating health care over the last 20 years has rapidly advanced, with behavioral health experts like Adam Harrison, Psy.D. working side-by-side with primary care and dental practitioners, community health workers, and many others, in one setting, working as one team, with a full range of resources for patients.

The Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS), in partnership with local organizations and communities, will kick off National Prevention Week 2019 with a forum on May 13 at 5 p.m. at the New Britain Museum of American Art located at 56 Lexington Street in New Britain.

Expanded primary care and behavioral health services are now available for residents of Bristol and surrounding towns through Wheeler’s Family Health & Wellness Center at 10 North Main Street and 225 North Main Street.

Teodoro Anderson Diaz, LCSW, LADC, a behavioral health care leader and practitioner, has joined Wheeler as vice president of Adult Outpatient Services.

Jenny Cannon, APRN, primary care nurse practitioner at Wheeler, talks about how she began her career in nursing and her professional role at Wheeler.

A free Spring Health Screening Camp provided by The Greater Hartford Sathya Sai Center in collaboration with Grace Lutheran Church and Wheeler Clinic will take place on Saturday, April 27 from 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. at Grace Lutheran Church, 46 Woodland Street, Hartford.

E. Cinqué Barlow has joined the Wheeler Family Health & Wellness Center as a specialist for the Ryan White Case Management Program.

Wheeler’s Multidimensional Family Therapy (MDFT) program has doubled the number of teams in Region 5 (Waterbury/Danbury/Torrington) and tripled its number of teams in Region 2 (New Haven/Milford). The program now serves youth and families in more than 55 cities and towns in Connecticut.

Wheeler’s Connecticut Clearinghouse hosted a community quilting event on Saturday, March 30 to honor the memory of those lost to substance use disorders, including opioid addiction. This event was part of a statewide Remembrance Quilt initiative—launched in 2017 by the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) —to honor loved ones who have died from substance use disorders or addiction.

Three upcoming programs will focus on anxiety management, adolescent girls and opioids, and Mental Health First Aid.

When James left prison in early 2018, he found a world that he didn’t recognize in many ways. There was new technology, new ways of communicating, new challenges. One major challenge remained, however, and that was addressing many of the factors that led him to prison to begin with, including addiction.

Health and wellness is so much more than going to the doctor or getting prescriptions filled. If individuals and families leave the physician’s office and return home to environments that don’t promote or sustain healthy behaviors, treating diseases like asthma, depression or heart disease can become difficult or even impossible. The social determinants of health influence everything else in our health care system.

The only community health center in Connecticut with both primary medical care and behavioral health home certifications, Wheeler is also one of five organizations nationally to earn four specific accreditations and certifications from the nation’s oldest and largest standards-setting and accrediting body for providing quality, coordinated, patient-centered health care.

The Main Street Community Foundation awarded Wheeler an $80,000 grant to continue the Southington Health Outreach Project. Now in its fifth year, this project employs a three-tiered approach to serving individuals and families, including outreach and health education, system navigation assistance, and efforts to reduce barriers to care such as transportation, child care concerns and others.