New PI clinic looks to serve addiction,
mental health needs
Fresh from working on the front lines of addiction and mental health in Boston, Caribou native Matt Salch is helping bring more options for behavioral health to Aroostook County.
Salch has joined with Mary-Helena McInerney, a fellow graduate of Boston University’s mental health counselling program, to open County Behavioral Medicine, a nonprofit clinic in Presque Isle.
Both licensed clinical counselors, Salch and McInerney are offering services for addiction, mental health and family therapy with the aim of addressing unmet needs.
“I understand addiction in the area. I have family and friends who have suffered with addiction,” Salch said. “We have a passion for treating people with addiction with the medical model. Addiction is a disease, not a faulted person.”
Salch has worked in a variety of settings while specializing in mental health crisis interventions, including as a psychiatric crisis clinician with the Boston Police Department, responding to individuals in distress and helping them avoid violent confrontations, jail or unnecessary hospital visits and ultimately get treatment.
McInerney, who’s originally from Malden, Massachusetts, specializes in trauma and family counselling. “With our different backgrounds, we feel that it’s a good combination to try to come here and see what we can do in the community,” McInerney said.
“We’re trying to help open up the conversation about mental health and substance abuse,” she said. “It’s a very difficult topic. The more we talk about things the more we’re able to help each other understand.”
McInerney added that County Behavioral accepts all insurances and offers a sliding scale fee schedule based on incomes, noting that they can also help people apply for insurance.
Using techniques such as mindfulness-based stress reduction, Salch and McInerney are offering a range of approaches, including trauma therapy, group, family and individual therapy and substance abuse therapy.
They also may eventually offer medication-assisted therapy for heroin and opioid addiction with suboxone, which would be prescribed by a psychiatrist or nurse practitioner and paired with cognitive-behavioral therapy.
“Opioid-replacement therapies are successful and do work,” especially when people recovering with addictions participate in counseling, group therapy and community support programs, Salch said.
While Aroostook County does not have a dedicated psychiatric hospital for treating acute mental health disorders or addiction – which can often come in tandem – Salch said that clinics like County Behavioral can help expand access to treatment and offer better outreach.
“One of my goals is to work with TAMC or other medical providers in the area when they do acute detox” with individuals on alcohol, heroin or opioids. “We would like to be a part of that process.”
Salch added that they’re also focusing on helping youth and a state program trying to address the problem of childhood trauma.
“We’ve received training in the Maine Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative to take what we’ve learned and share with teachers, health providers, community members, police departments and fire departments,” Salch said. “We look for things that we can learn and bring back.”
