BARTON — Advocates say Northeast Kingdom residents need better mental health care and are calling on officials to ensure the area’s beleaguered service agency improves offerings before its state designation is restored.
“Our current system has no preventative care measures,” said Heather Legacy, secretary of Northeast Kingdom Organizing, a regional group focused on social issues. “Parents are sent on wild goose chases to access services that only exist on paper.”
On Monday, members of the regional group gathered on the green in downtown Barton to share stories of inadequate services and direct demands to leaders overseeing Northeast Kingdom Human Services, which is charged with providing the region’s mental health, substance use and disability services.
The agency was placed on provisional designation by the Department of Mental Health in December after a state investigation found systemic issues in leadership, staffing and services.
The seven-month investigation showed the agency was short-staffed and providing inadequate care.
Employees did not have the necessary qualifications for their work, and the organization wasn’t following documentation and billing procedures, the department found. More than 50 employees and clients had complained to state officials in recent years.
The agency’s CEO, Tomasz Jankowski, resigned after the downgrade in designation. State officials in January gave the agency six months to implement a corrective plan.
Martha Braithwaite, Northeast Kingdom Organizing’s lead organizer, said Monday that the agency has made strides in improving workplace culture and internal practices.
“However, it’s not enough,” Braithwaite said. “Our community needs access to high-quality mental health care, and we are calling on the Department of Mental Health to ensure that progress is made in the area of service delivery before NKHS is fully re-designated.”
Group members listed several demands as part of that call.
The group wants Northeast Kingdom Human Services to hire a full-time child therapist, hire staff for contracted senior counseling and hire staff to deliver contracted services with pediatric care in Newport.
The group also wants the agency to open a clinic in Barton at least once a week, license and train three homes to provide respite care for youth in Orleans County, and halve its waiting list for counseling and case management for children.
That waitlist recently stood at 80 children, said Penny Thomas, a board member of Northeast Kingdom Organizing.
The group began a “listening campaign” in February focused on Barton and the surrounding communities because of its centrality in the Kingdom, Thomas said.
Group members said they spoke with more than 75 people over the past few months who described desperation in seeking mental health care.
“Any time you go (through the mental health system), it’s a runaround,” Thomas said a patient told her. “They schedule the appointment, and then they cancel the appointment. It becomes months, (and) I haven’t seen my actual therapist in over a year.”
Another client, who has a young child at home with behavioral needs, told the group it took two to three years to get a therapist, Thomas said. An elementary school counselor told the group “the highest level of support (the agency has) for families in crisis is a 15-minute call,” she said.
Legacy, the group’s secretary, said the stories the group heard reminded her of her own struggle to seek mental health care for her child.
“Some of these children … sat on waiting lists until they were hospitalized with suicidal ideation,” she said.
The community needs Northeast Kingdom Human Services to be “a proactive partner,” she said, but “unfortunately for many of us, this has not been the reality in recent years.”
The group sent a letter to Department of Mental Health Commissioner Sarah Squirrell on Monday outlining its demands. The department said Northeast Kingdom Human Services has until July to enact their plan.
The agency is currently looking for a new director after Jankowski’s resignation.
