Integral Care is excited to kick off a new strategic plan that will guide our work for the next three years. Hear from our incredible team about what our new goals mean to them. READ FULL PLAN

Click here to watch the 8/25 Board of Trustees meeting live webinar.

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Click here to watch the 7/28 Board of Trustees meeting live webinar.

Then, click the “Continue on this browser” button. The meeting starts at 5pm.
Disclaimer: While we’re working to expand our telecasting infrastructure, some capabilities are not fully active. At this time, please refrain from using the “Raise Hand” feature during the meeting. We appreciate your support as we continue to improve these capabilities.

Funding from Humana will enable Integral Care to expand its existing food pantry at Terrace at Oak Springs (TAOS), a permanent supportive housing community that provides a home and wraparound services to 50 individuals who have experienced chronic homelessness and live with mental illness, substance use disorder, and other chronic health conditions.

Currently, the food pantry is open for residents once per month. Additional funding from Humana will enable Integral Care to purchase and stock sufficient food, hygiene items, and other supplies to open the food pantry once per week. This change in the pantry schedule will help ensure that TAOS residents have more frequent access to basic needs assistance, thereby reducing food insecurity, building health and well-being, and enhancing the stabilizing effects of housing.

Additionally, Integral Care plans to pilot a food delivery service for other clients receiving supportive housing services who do not have access to an on-site food pantry. This service will help to ensure that all residents of Integral Care apartment communities — including individuals with transportation barriers and low or no income — have their basic needs met with regular, dependable deliveries directly to their homes.

SAMSHA awards $625,000 ($125,000 per year for 5 years) to Integral Care to provide Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training, as well as Counseling on Access to Lethal Means (CALM), and Safety Planning Intervention (SPI), to families, caregivers, and service providers in contact with armed service personnel, veterans and their families who may be experiencing a mental health challenge, and potentially impairing their functioning in daily life activities.
 
Individuals targeted for Mental Health Awareness Training may work with veterans and armed-service members in a community-based counseling center, or healthcare facility, and/or may be Certified Veteran Peers, and/or may be a veteran’s family member or caregiver. These individuals interact on a daily basis with armed service personnel and veterans who are in need of multiple community-based services due to their complex and chronic trauma.

Integral Care has been awarded $5 million ($2.5 million per year for a two-year period) to address the needs of individuals with SED, SMI, and SUD or COD and improve access to behavioral health services, Integral Care will: (1) implement a new, fully integrated telehealth solution to offer HIPAA-compliant virtual care; (2) increase intake capacity by hiring additional helpline customer care staff, as well as clinic and community-based intake staff; (3) expand outpatient and community-based service with additional clinical staff to increase level-of-care services, additional housing stability specialists to help clients secure and maintain safe, stable housing, and community health workers to focus on whole health and wellness; and (4) offer enhanced recovery support services with additional peer support specialists in our clinics, the community, and across the substance use services continuum.

Integral Care will continue to support the mental health of staff, including new CMHC staff, in active collaboration with the agency’s Human Resources and Learning and Development Teams, which offer staff a variety of health and wellness resources, including the employee assistance program, our Live Well series, and more.

Integral Care received a $10,000 grant from the Religious Coalition to Assist the Homeless (RCAH), a coalition of Austin-area faith communities that provides grant funds to social service providers to expand the capacity of local housing and shelter programs. Funding from RCAH will help Integral Care provide wraparound support services for the residents of Terrace at Oak Springs and future residents of Studios at Menchaca, two single-site, permanent supportive housing communities.

All residents have experienced chronic homelessness and live with mental illness, substance use disorder, and/or other chronic health conditions. In permanent supportive housing communities like Terrace at Oak Springs and Studios at Menchaca, offering flexible, voluntary support services can help individuals stay housed, build their self-sufficiency, and contribute to their communities. Onsite wraparound services in the residential portion of the building will include case management, peer specialist support, benefits counseling, education, and job training/supported employment.

Integral Care has been awarded $155,329 for two years from the Health and Human Services Commission to hire a Children’s Mental Health System Navigator to provide linkage, advocacy, case management/system navigation, and referral coordination to children and youth experiencing mental illness, substance use disorders, or IDD who need assistance overcoming barriers to care.
 
This project will support children and youth who interact with different child-serving systems and enhance services for high-risk children and youth by creating and strengthening relationships with community partners.

In March Austin Public Health (APH) awarded Integral Care $333,573 for the Ryan White HIV Services. Integral Care’s Community AIDS Resources and Education (C.A.R.E.) Program will provide case management, mental health, and outpatient substance use services at the C.A.R.E. Program office, as well as in clients’ homes, in the community, and via telephone and Microsoft Teams in order to remove barriers for clients who are unable to access services at our office location.

More specifically, mental health services provided will include both individual and group counseling services, as well as psychiatric services for persons living with HIV (PLWH). Integral Care will also provide access to medical transportation assistance for the purpose of accessing primary medical care, services provided at the C.A.R.E. Program, and other supportive services.

Clients will also be able to access case management services via C.A.R.E.’s case management walk-in hours, which are offered multiple times per week. In addition, C.A.R.E. Program case managers will be able to complete SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access, and Recovery (SOAR) applications with members of the target population in order to increase access to the disability income benefit programs administered by the Social Security Administration (SSA) for eligible adults who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness and have a mental illness, medical impairment, and/or a co-occurring substance use disorder.

For residential substance use services, we will sub-contract these services to four subgrantees, including: Recovery Unplugged, Carma Health – MD services for Recovery Unplugged, Cross Creek Hospital, and Seton Shoal Creek Hospital.

Integral Care has been awarded a grant for $124,697 from Austin Public Health (APH) to provide community-based services across the continuum of care by hiring two additional Qualified Mental Health Professionals (QMHPs). The addition of one clinic-based Intake QMHP, and one Community Health Worker QMHP will build Integral Care’s intake and re-engagement capacity. By hiring a clinic-based intake QMHP, Integral Care will build our overall intake capacity.
 
With the addition of an intake QMHP at Integral Care’s newest clinic, Stonegate, we will be able to decrease the workload of the existing staff, in turn reducing burnout, while increasing client satisfaction by decreasing wait times and ensuring that all individuals are seen for their intake appointment. Additionally, Integral Care will also add a Community Health Worker (CHW) QMHP who resides in the community they serve. This CHW will provide culturally appropriate health education and information to promote health equity and reach underserved communities. The CHW will play a strategic role in outreach and engagement, promoting communication and understanding between community members and providers, increasing use of health services in a community, improving adherence to health recommendations, and decreasing use of emergency services. The CHW will help families recognize early signs of mental illness and substance use disorder and encourage community members to get appropriate screenings for behavioral health conditions before they reach a crisis.
 
By providing this service where clients live, Integral Care can more effectively reach individuals in underserved communities, including minority and low-income populations who face numerous barriers to healthcare access, and connect them to appropriate care. These staff will provide trauma-informed screening, assessment, diagnosis, and patient-centered treatment planning and treatment delivery. Additionally, Integral Care will partner with various community agencies to provide ongoing integrated care. Currently, Integral Care has collaborations with CommUnity Care and Lonestar Circle of Care to provide integrated Primary Care within our clinic settings. Through this grant, Integral Care will identify needs through intake and community-based services and leverage existing resources and partnerships to refer individuals to the most appropriate services.