News from Wheeler

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

Wheeler's Health & Wellness Center team will have seven walk-in clinics available to assist with SNAP, SAGA, TANF, HUSKY and Access Healthcare.

Keturah Kinch, MPA, director of Health Center Community Engagement for Wheeler Clinic's Family Health & Wellness community health centers in Hartford, Bristol and New Britain, is featured in an Access Health CT social media campaign running this month as part of Mental Health Month.

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 Wheeler Family Health & Wellness Center, a community health center at 43 Woodland Street in Hartford, and Genoa Healthcare marked the opening of a full-service, on-site pharmacy with a ribbon-cutting event on April 2.

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.

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.

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.

“Chasing Away the Winter Blues,” happens on Wednesday, January 9 at 6:30 p.m. at Southington Public Library, 255 Main St, Southington.

Mayor Ellen Zoppo-Sassu today announced the receipt of a grant from the State of Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) that will enable the City of Bristol to directly address the opioid crisis with a $150,000 grant.

From the early start-up years to the leading edge of addressing today’s opioid crisis, Wheeler’s addiction programs have consistently approached the disease of addiction with innovative methodologies at the intersection with other health conditions.

Wheeler has received a five-year, $2.7-million federal grant to address adolescent and young adults substance use in Hartford.