United Counseling Service, the leading mental health agency in Bennington and Manchester, lists openings for 28 jobs. They range from a direct support professional for an independent living program to an Arlington School clinician, a mental health social worker. That last position comes with a $1,000 signing bonus.
“We are noticing that baby boomers are starting to retire,” said Lorna Mattern, executive director of the counseling service. “That leaves a hole. People are leaving human services because it’s incredibly challenging work. People are underpaid. People are burning out.”
Mattern said she is actually trying to fill closer to 45 jobs.
One particularly acute shortage is among direct support professionals, who supply one-on-one care to people with disabilities so that they can remain in their homes.
It can be anxiety-inducing work in a pandemic.
“You’re really up close and personal,” Mattern said.
She said the nonprofit is borrowing staff from other organizations and is training staff members in administrative support positions to fill vacancies in its residential care homes.
“We are trying to keep our group homes open and running and safe,” Mattern said. “We have folks with intellectual and mental disabilities. We are struggling.”
She said her organization has half the job applicants it had last year, and one problem is pay.
“Frankly, we can’t pay very well,” Mattern said. “Unfortunately, our competition right now is Dunkin’ Donuts and Walmart. We did just raise our pay to $16 an hour. I can get a job at Dunkin’ Donuts for $16 an hour and all the coffee I can drink.”
Mattern is counting on job satisfaction to draw people to work for United Counseling Service. It is something she said is important to millennials and Generation Z replacing retiring boomers.
“You do get satisfaction at the end of the day walking away from your shift,” Mattern said.
To ease the financial burden for people coming into human services, Mattern proposes tuition reimbursement as one possible incentive.
“If nothing else, the pandemic has put mental health issues at the forefront,” Mattern said. “The Legislature has concentrated on making some investments in the mental health system. Mental health services need to be funded at the same level as physical and medical health.
“I think people’s issues are becoming more complex. We have issues with opioids, alcoholism. More and more people are using alcohol to respond to the pandemic, to respond to the pressures of life.”
Agencies for each region
In Vermont, the Department of Mental Health designates one private nonprofit agency, such as United Counseling Service in Bennington County, in each part of the state to provide the department’s mental health programs.
It is those agencies that are feeling the most acute need for human services staff — the people whose job descriptions include case worker, family support worker, and youth worker. They provide the critical links in care for Vermonters from childhood to old age; without them, medical, psychiatric and social work professionals would be limited in the help they can provide patients and clients.
Howard Center, which has programs in Chittenden County, Rutland, Grand Isle County and St. Albans, lists 98 open positions.
Counseling Services of Addison County lists openings for an adult mental health clinician, a community support worker, a residential worker, a community case manager, community living support staff, a community bridges peer support specialist, a police liaison crisis specialist, two behavior interventionists (one home-based), a school-based clinician and a home school coordinator.
Emily Hawes, the Vermont commissioner of mental health, said that, as of February, 780 staff mental health positions at the 10 mental health organizations with which the department works were open statewide. That was a 15% vacancy rate. More recent numbers are expected next month.
“It’s one of our top-priority issues,” Hawes said. “I’m not sure that there is a quick fix.”
Suicide concerns
The shortage of human services workers also affects Vermont’s Federally Qualified Health Centers, the one-stop centers that offer primary health care regardless of ability to pay.
“We have a committed team of counselors,” said Rebecca O’Berry, vice president of operations at Gifford Health Care, which has locations in Barre, Berlin, Bethel, Chelsea, Randolph, Rochester and Sharon. “They are carrying a heavy burden because they are continuing to care for patients and health care providers. They spend a lot of time talking to staff.”
They also spend a lot of time talking to younger adult patients contemplating suicide, as well as their families and friends, O’Berry said.
“We’re seeing a lot of suicidal ideation,” she said.
O’Berry said Gifford probably needs 18 more counselors. To meet the need, the health center and the Randolph hospital have hired people who are not yet licensed and are trying to help them get licensed, she said.
“It’s the counseling piece that we need,” O’Berry said.
A hole in insurance
The Battenkill Valley Health Center in Arlington serves a part of the state, southwestern Vermont, that has one in four of the state’s medically uninsured people.
The center, with 35 employees for 4,500 patients, does not have a mental-health case management person, someone who can connect patients with housing and a food pantry, among other needs, because the Vermont Blueprint for Health, the state plan that designs community health care, has not been able to staff the position, said Dr. Anje Van Berckelaer, the center’s clinical director. So, the center uses other staff to do that work.
Gail Auclair, CEO of Little Rivers Health Care in Bradford, East Corinth and Wells River, says the center has been able to hire the human services staff it needs, but she is aware that other health centers have not been so fortunate.
“I’m hearing all around me that it’s difficult to find new people,” Auclair said. “Someone is smiling down on us. We have been exceedingly fortunate.”
The Northern Tier Center for Health, which operates in Alburgh, Enosburg Falls, Fairfax, Richford, St. Albans and Swanton, lists openings for a community health worker and a wellness counselor.
Wellness counselors try to get patients to exercise more, eat better, stop smoking, and sleep.
The center’s longtime executive director, Pamela Parsons, said it’s important for patients to see a wellness counselor when they come for a medical visit.
“The patient is here and they are seeing the provider and they see they need wellness counselors,” Parsons said. “We try to model that so there is time in a patient’s schedule to meet them,” because Parsons believes that increases the chances that the patient will come back for a longer appointment.
‘Small but mighty’
The Health Center in Plainfield and Cabot has an opening for an outreach coordinator and an emergency room nutritionist coordinator.
The 94 people on the center’s staff see 7,500 patients a year, one of every eight people in the 60,000 population in the area it serves.
“We’re small but mighty,” said the center’s CEO, Dr. John Matthew.
On top of providing primary care, the center provides intravenous infusions, minor surgery, dental care and psychiatry.
Matthew said the center has six or seven mental health counselors.
The center uses care coordinators, people who sign patients up and arrange transportation. It also uses a nutritionist, a dietitian/certified diabetes educator. One care coordinator sees patients at home and helps them with financial questions. Medical secretaries know which dermatology practice has the shortest wait time and where to schedule low-dose CAT scans.
Matthew tells the story of a patient that highlights the importance of a care manager in managing patient care.
Matthew’s patient had qualified for Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for low-income people, but at 65, was going onto Medicare, the program for people 65 and over. Medicare has higher deductibles and copays. Low-income people can qualify for secondary Medicare, but this patient made just a little bit too much money to qualify, which meant that she could no longer be covered for supplies, such as tubing, nozzles and filters, for her continuous positive airway pressure or CPAP machine to treat her sleep apnea.
The care manager was able to find several hundred dollars’ worth of expenses this patient incurred that lowered her income, and qualified her for the CPAP supplies.
It was important because treating sleep apnea can prevent a whole series of other health conditions.
Matthew said the center has had more staff turnover during the pandemic than in the prior five years.
“People are saying they want to go back to school,” Matthew said. “People are rethinking their life, having to stay home to take care of kids.”
He said the Health Center has been able to make up for those losses.
“We filled those jobs with good people,” Matthew said.
But he’s still looking for one more care coordinator.
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The Link Lonk
September 05, 2021 at 09:05PM
https://vtdigger.org/2021/09/05/nonprofit-counseling-services-hit-hard-by-staff-shortages/
Nonprofit counseling services hit hard by staff shortages - vtdigger.org
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