Support to community increased in 2024
By MEGAN HUGHES
news@yourdailyglobe.com
WAKEFIELD – The Gogebic County Community Mental Health Authority in Wakefield aims to provide
support in the county, targeting services to those residents who need it most.
Tess Greenough, CMH’s CEO, spoke with the Globe in late January about some of the offerings, changes and goals that the authority has for the upcoming year.
“The Community Mental Health Authority has been part of the community since 1976,” said Greenough, “and things have progressed throughout the years.”
At the time of its inception, CMH had a singular contract with the State of Michigan’s Department of Mental Health, but since then, the authority’s primary funding has changed to Michigan Medicaid.
“Michigan Medicaid comes into the region through our regional entity, which is Northcare Network,” based in Marquette, said Greenough.
According to her, CMH aims to meet the needs of community residents. “We want to be part of the community, and helping to support the community,” she said, She then clarified, “I think that the misnomer that gets us in trouble is that we cannot serve everyone in the community. We want people (who require our services) living and residing and being productive within their normal community.”
Over the last year, CMH has seen provider shortages that have impacted the entire healthcare field, with increased referrals coming in from primary care physicians for mental health services.
According to Greenough, CMH has taken over its access program, which had been managed by Northcare until January 2024. “Access” refers to the screening process that potential patients go through to determine if they are eligible for services through CMH.
“We have had access back in-house since January 2024.” said Greenough. She added, “In order to access services in any CMH, it starts with a brief screening where providers ask questions, look at your insurance, what are your functional impairments – just a brief screening before they schedule something.”
Prior to CMH taking over its in-house screenings, those activities had been performed at a regional level since 2008, she said.
Now, she added, “We do our own screenings. If someone does not meet the criteria for services, or doesn’t seem to have the significant functional impairment that we are required by statute to provide services to, then we try to make referrals out into the community.”
In the past year, the authority has made several changes to its offered programming, including its Assertive Community Treatment program, which is no longer offered in the same form.
According to Greenough, ACT’s focus is on individuals with psychosis or severe mental illness
such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, in which case individuals have a significant need for multiple contracts to keep them engaged.
“We discontinued that service because we had four full-time workers that were assigned to 19 people across the community,” she said, but added that the patients are still receiving services.
“We just changed the way we were offering the services,” she said. “They still see our doctors, they still have a nurse, they still have a case manager and have community support. It is just not called ACT anymore.”
She attributed the change to a change in need, as CMH staff were able to utilize their resources better, allowing them to offer services to more people without sacrificing the intensity of services being provided to individuals using the ACT program.
“We continue to have our home-based child and family services team working in the community,” said Greenough. “We have seen an expansive increase in the number of referrals that we get for children and families. More so than other CMHs when I have asked how many people they have in specific programs. Mind you, we serve one county, where others serve from two to four or five counties.”
According to her, the percentage of people seeking services has increased notably over the past year. At this time, the 2024- 2025 data was not available, but between the 2023 and 2024 fiscal years, GCMH saw an 18.46% increase of customers, along with a 7.96% increase in the number of services offered. Moreover, the number of individuals seeking assistance from CMHs across the state also has increased overall, according to Greenough.
And that’s the point. “The goal is to get people connected to these resources,” said Greenough.