Community Mental Health for Central Michigan provides services for adults and children who live in any of CMHCM's six county service area: Clare, Gladwin, Isabella, Mecosta, Midland, or Osceola and have a severe and/or persistent mental illness or are an individual with a developmental disability.
Services Offered
Mental Health Therapy and Counseling for Adults, Children, and Families - Includes therapy or counseling designed to help improve functioning and relationships with other people.
Brief Strategic Family Therapy (BSFT) - A short-term, family-based, therapeutic intervention that targets children and adolescents aged six to 17 years. BSFT was designed and empirically validated to eliminate/significantly reduce conduct problems, drug use and associated acting-out behaviors and their corresponding emotional problems. By utilizing BSFT change interventions, dysfunctional family interactions are reversed, families are strengthened and the psychosocial problems of the children are significantly improved. BSFT is delivered in weekly, one to one-and-a-half hour sessions. The key approaches included in the treatment are (1) focus on improving parent-child interactions; (2) parent training; (3) developing conflict resolution, parenting, and communication skills; and (4) family therapy. This therapy is available in all six counties.
Family Psychoeducation (FPE) - A specific method of working in partnership with consumers and families in a long-term treatment model to help them develop coping skills to deal more effectively with a serious mental illness. Families participate in multi-family groups for problem-solving, or as an individual family in single-family FPE. Family is defined as any support person in the consumer's life.
Home-Based Services for Children and Families - Provided in the family home or in another community setting. Services are designed individually for each family and can include things like mental health therapy, crisis intervention, service coordination, or other supports to the family.
Wraparound Services for Children and Adolescents - For those with serious emotional disturbance and their families. Includes treatment and supports necessary to maintain the child in the family home.
Mentor Services - Provided to adolescents with a serious mental illness and sometimes a co-occurring substance disorder or developmental disability who are returning from a residential setting of at-risk out-of-home placement. Mentors teach and model skills necessary for the adolescent to maintain residency in the community, such as decision-marking, problem-solving and assertiveness. Mentors also seek to promote the individuals self-esteem and self-confidence.
Aggression Replacement Training (ART) - Teaches chronically aggressive youth alternatives to problematic behavior in a group therapy format. This evidence-based practice provides competencies to youth in Social Skills Training, Anger Management and Moral Reasoning. The ART curriculum consists of 16 weekly sessions that are 1.5 hours in length. Groups use modeling and role-play with performance feedback to tech pro-social living skills. Groups train youth to respond appropriately to provocations through focusing on triggers, cues, reminders, use of appropriate pro-social alternative behaviors, and self-evaluation. Groups also have a values component where youth are exposed to a series of moral dilemmas in a discussion group format to teach moral reasoning skills.
Integrated Dually Diagnosed Treatment (IDDT) - An evidence-based treatment approach that helps people recover by offering treatments that combine or integrate mental health and substance abuse interventions at the level of the clinical encounter. This means the same clinicians or teams of clinicians, working in one setting, provide appropriate mental health and substance abuse interventions in an integrated fashion. For the individual with a co-occurring disorder, the services appear seamless, with a consistent approach, philosophy, and set of recommendations that supports recovery.
Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) - A therapeutic approach to helping resolve emotional and behavioral disturbance by looking at how the consumer's thoughts and beliefs impact the way they feel and behave. The goal is to help the consumer recognize and change negative thoughts and maladaptive beliefs that lead to distressing emotions and/or ineffective ways of coping. In realizing these mistaken beliefs, a person's mood and subsequent behaviors improve as a result. CBT is brief/time-limited and present-centered, focused on current concerns.
Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) - Provides intensive and basic services and supports essential for people with serious mental illness to maintain independence in the community. An ACT team will provide mental health therapy and help with medications. The team may also help access community resources and supports needed to maintain wellness and participate in social, educational, and vocational activities.
Anger Management - A weekly cognitive behavior therapy group service focused on reducing anger and enhancing self-control and is offered in many of our counties.
Dialectic Behavioral Therapy (DBT) - For adults and adolescents is a treatment approach that focuses on skill enhancement to improve emotional regulation. This treatment approach is best utilized for people with Borderline Personality Disorder.
Fees and Payment
If you are enrolled in Medicaid and meet the criteria for the specialty mental health and substance abuse services, the total cost of your authorized mental health or substance abuse treatment will be covered. If you are a Medicaid beneficiary with a deductible ("spend-down"), as determined by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS), you may be responsible for the cost of a portion of your services.
Charges to persons for services shall be based on their ability to pay. No resident of the Board's catchment area shall be denied services because of ability or inability to pay the full cost of services; a sliding fee determination is available.
Services Offered To: Adults Couples Teens Children
A community counseling agency is a group therapy practice that offers affordable mental health services. Most are independent non-profit agencies, state agencies, or publicly-funded agencies. A few may restrict who is eligible for services, so it is a good idea to check when you call.
Community counseling agencies are generally more affordable than other therapy providers, but how much more affordable they are will depend on whether you qualify for a discount or sliding scale fee (or if they accept your insurance). Many, but not all, have a policy that they won't turn away anyone due to inability to pay. You should ask about their fees when you first call.
Expect to talk to kind people who want to help you find the care you need. Most community agencies strive to connect you with a live person within 24 hours, if not immediately. If you're asked to hold or leave a message, don't give up; just leave a message and wait. You should hear back pretty quickly.
Most agencies try to set up an initial assessment appointment within a week (some do within 24 hours), though the waitlist to start therapy is usually longer—about a few weeks on average. If you're not eligible or if the agency is not right for you, it's usually still worth it to call or drop in, because staff are knowledgeable about local options and can often refer you to one.
