Trending
HOUGHTON -- During last Wednesday's Mental Health Awareness Month talk at the Portage Lake District Library in Houghton, one of the messages was the increasing need for services in the community, and community members and organizations rising to meet those needs. A prime example of this are Beth Shannon and Angela Price, co-founders of Unite Mental Health and Wellness, a nonprofit organization in Houghton.
Shannon and Price are Baraga County natives. With Shannon's background in mental health and wellness and Price's experience in nonprofits and healthcare, they both recognized needs in the community that were not being met and felt they could contribute to a solution.
Price said that the business was incorporated as a nonprofit on February 9th, 2021. They invested an entire year building the infrastructure based on community needs. They looked at the issues facing accessibility to mental health care in rural communities specifically and developed a plan to address them.
Shannon said that year helped them to narrow down their vision for the services Unite should offer.
For example, said Price, they discovered that there were a number of specialty service needs that were not being fully met locally such as eating disorders, LGBTQIA+, and child-focused therapy, among others.
While they were renovating their building, which was formerly the College Avenue Vision Clinic, they were able to really think about how they wanted their vision to come to life.
"Initially," said Price, "the plan was to bring in providers via telehealth services and/or tap into therapists who may want to moonlight or work part-time. Once operations began, despite very little advertising, said Price, they were quickly overwhelmed. People began reaching out immediately.
"We had to rethink our strategy," she said. "We decided to start hiring full-time. We had our first full-time hire in August, 2022."
Shannon said one of the questions they focused on was why there is a national shortage of providers, including psychiatrists and therapists. The answer, they found, is partially due to "burn-out." Shannon explained that their goal was to ensure they were supporting the therapists and providers so that they would not reach that point.
"Another issue we wanted to address," she said, "is therapists got into this profession to help people, not spend their time dealing with insurance companies and the paperwork that comes along with this. We wanted therapists to work in an environment where they have more control over their schedule and can have a strong focus on providing quality care. We take care of their administrative tasks so they can make people their priority."
Currently, Unite employs six therapists, five of whom are located in the office and one who is remote. Unite also partners with two clinical psychologists via telehealth and one psychiatric practice primarily for medication management.
Services include therapy for depression, anxiety trauma, post traumatic stress, ADHD, LGBTQIA+, and more. Types of therapy offered include, but are not limited to, cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, trauma informed care. Unite offers services for children ages three and up, as well as for teens and adults.
Price and Shannon said individuals can usually be scheduled in under two weeks.
"People have called and have been surprised by that," said Shannon, "In many cases we can see people within three days."
One of the biggest challenges for those needing care is knowing where to go or knowing how to get connected to the help they need, said Price.
"We're constantly assessing the needs," she said. "If we need to, we'll continue hiring -- as we're hearing issues, we try to resolve them. We are small enough that we are able to act quickly."
"Unite is not a large corporation," said Shannon. "We're a nonprofit organization. We're really grassroots," she said. "We're two professional women who grew up here. We're community members. We saw a need in our community and we decided to do something about it."
Additionally, Unite also accepts several commercial insurance plans, as well as Medicaid, Medicare, UPHP and private pay.