Page 6 – Aunt Martha's

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Partnership will offer one-stop access to primary care, mental health and behavioral health services.

CHICAGO, IL: Aunt Martha’s Health & Wellness, one of Illinois’ largest Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC), and Lutheran Social Services of Illinois (LSSI), one of the largest statewide providers of social services, are collaborating to increase community access to primary care and behavioral health services in Chicago’s Portage Park and Belmont-Cragin neighborhoods.

The partnership will bring Aunt Martha’s services to LSSI’s Portage Cragin Counseling Center, located at 4840 W. Byron Street, Chicago.

Teams of employees from both agencies will work hand-in-hand with patients and their caregivers to develop care plans, coordinate visits and monitor progress toward personal treatment goals.

“This partnership is about bringing value to the community. That’s central to everything we do and in LSSI we found a partner that shares that commitment,” said Raul Garza, Aunt Martha’s President and CEO.

From the patient’s perspective, according to Garza, Aunt Martha’s on-site primary care, nursing and psychiatric services will be seamlessly integrated with the outpatient counseling and therapy services already being provided at LSSI’s Portage Cragin center. The integrated model is the underpinning of Aunt Martha’s value-based approach to care and has been demonstrated to result in higher levels of screening, better adherence to treatment, fewer ER visits and fewer hospital admissions – all factors that contribute to better outcomes and lower costs.

“Health and human service providers have a responsibility to improve the health and well-being of their community,” said Mark A. Stutrud, President and CEO of Lutheran Social Services of Illinois. “This integrated approach provides Whole Person, Whole Family care.”

Aunt Martha’s and LSSI are planning an opening event for the summer of 2021.

About Aunt Martha’s

Aunt Martha’s serves nearly 120,000 children and adults each year with more than 35 sites, including 23 community health centers spread across nine counties. The agency’s integrated health home model offers value-based, coordinated services, delivering whole-person wellness through the integration of primary and behavioral health care and linkages to additional support services that address social determinants of health. Aunt Martha’s has been continuously accredited by The Joint Commission since 1997.

About Lutheran Social Services of Illinois (LSSI)

Serving Illinois since 1867, Lutheran Social Services of Illinois (LSSI.org) is a nonprofit social service organization of the three Illinois synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). LSSI is one of the largest statewide social service providers. The organization provides critical programs for Illinois residents including foster care, mental health services, alcohol and drug treatment, affordable senior housing, residential programs for people with developmental disabilities, and services that help families who have been impacted by incarceration. LSSI is accredited by the Council on Accreditation.

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Media Contacts

LSSI

Barb Kraeger Hailey
847.635.4686
Barb.Hailey@LSSI.org

Aunt Martha’s

Kenny Martín-Ocasio
708.747.7441
kmocasio@auntmarthas.org

The BMN Crisis Worsens

As the urgent quarantine needs of the pre-vaccine pandemic subsided, plans turned once again to the creation of a Step Down program for youth ready to leave the Integrated Care Center the CQC and the Children’s Quarantine Center was no longer as necessary, the plans resumed to convert the space to the Step Down program.

While that moved forward, a new challenge emerged – the Director of the Department of Children and Family Services in Illinois was charged with being in contempt of court for not finding appropriate placements for youth being held beyond medical necessity (BMN) in hospitals and psychiatric facilities.

Expanding on the ICC Model

Hearing this news, Aunt Martha’s leadership knew the organization had to be a part of the solution. Today, we are planning to expand on the success of the ICC model — and welcome an exciting new partner — to allow Aunt Martha’s to take on more youth in crisis or with significant behavioral health needs.

We believe every child deserves a chance to feel safe, appreciated, and receive the care they need to succeed. We look forward to announcing more about this incredible expansion throughout 2022.

While ICC staff adjusted to the increasing complexities of the youth being placed in their care — from 2018-2021 they saw a 340% increase in placements directly from psychiatric settings — a new need emerged. Despite the team’s success at stabilizing even the most high-acuity youth, it became clear that many of the kids who improved so quickly in Aunt Martha’s care needed an additional layer of support.

They had a plan in mind. They saw a “Step Down” program as key to continuing the exceptional progress so many youth and young adults had made in the relatively short-term environment of the ICC.

Their plan began to take shape. Then COVID-19 happened.

Philoniese Moore, Senior VP of ICC and CQC Operations, embodies Aunt Martha’s commitment to children and youth. Here she is pictured at the entrance to the Integrated Care Center. On the right is Mr. Amir Major, a former Manager on Duty at the ICC.

The Children’s Quarantine Center

An Urgent Call for Help

On March 21, 2020, Aunt Martha’s learned that the COVID-19 virus had been confirmed in the homes of at least one of Illinois’ DCFS foster care families. 16 days later, 16,400 positive tests had been confirmed.

These families needed to find a safe place for their foster children to go. There was no place. At least not a place that was designed to protect people from a deadly airborne virus. Aunt Martha’s, it just so happened, was positioned to mobilize an immediate response.

We proposed the Children’s Quarantine Center (CQC), which would give DCFS youth the chance to quarantine in home-like setting. Only this home would be equipped with the infectious disease control protections of a health care facility.

Creating the CQC

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, Aunt Martha’s operated the facility now known as the Children’s Quarantine Center as a transitional living program for homeless youth and young adults.

Negative Pressure System

In addition to redesigning the space to accommodate and medically isolate the youth placed there, preparing the CQC required the installation of a hospital-grade, negative pressure ventilation system to control the spread of airborne pathogens.

Just as in a hospital setting, where negative pressure rooms are used in patient rooms to ensure infectious germs do not spread throughout the facility via the HVAC systems, the installation of such a system at the CQC effectively isolated youth while protecting them and staff in other areas of the facility from exposure.

Social Distancing

The CQC’s layout reflected its youth-centered program plan, allowing for youth and staff to maintain social distancing while living and working full-time in a congregate setting.

Because limiting exposure to visitors was essential for quarantine, the CQC was equipped with an interactive video system that allowed youth to maintain contact with their families, foster families and other individuals they relied on for support.

The Integrated Care Center

Our commitment to serving youth in crisis from the beginning continues to this day, and is highlighted by the development of the Integrated Care Center (ICC) in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. This center transitioned in 2019 to the great model that lives today – a place for children and young adults in the child welfare system with the most need to stabilize, receive comprehensive medical and behavioral health care, and ultimately prepare them for adulthood and rejoining their communities.

Outcomes that Matter

It’s almost impossible to describe the feelings of hope and hard work when you walk into the ICC – the dedicated staff have such thoughtful relationships with each child and are ready to work with them through any challenge. Our team’s ability to connect with these highly vulnerable young people, as you’ll see in Lynzell’s story, makes it possible for the ICC staff and youth to achieve behavioral outcomes like:

47% decrease in youth hospitalization after 2 weeks of placement
68% decrease in acts of aggression within 4 weeks
71% decrease in medication-related incidents within 8 weeks, and
Overall, a 95% reduction in elopements from the program.

Lynzell’s Story

While the numbers can speak for themselves, the best stories come from the success of the participants themselves. Lynzell’s is one of those stories. Take a few minutes to get to know this incredible young man, and see why the ICC is such a crucial part of Aunt Martha’s history and future.

Welcome to The Hill

The Chicago Tribune once described “The Hill” — the notoriously dangerous neighborhood on the east side of Joliet — like this:

“Warfare is common in the poor, mostly African-American Joliet neighborhood known as ‘The Hill.’ For years, it has been plagued by gunshots and gang members, dope dealers and malcontents. In the past, police said they would record an average of two shootings each night in the heart of that east side of town.”

The Tribune article was published in 1997, by which time Aunt Martha’s teams had been on The Hill for 13 years.

In 1984, Aunt Martha’s had accepted the offer to join a federal program targeting street gangs in Joliet. The area had changed over the years with the loss of industrial jobs, and unemployment had skyrocketed amongst youth in the area. Aunt Martha’s earned the trust of young people and local officials by being the first organization to address the urgent problems of gangs and unemployment in “The Hill” specifically.

“We tackled the hard stuff that other agencies didn’t want to deal with; we beat the streets and went into housing complexes where others didn’t want to go,” said Darryl Robinson, the Joliet office’s first manager.

Aunt Martha’s first permanent site in Joliet was an office in The Barber Building, located at 68 N. Chicago Street. (Photo by Bob Okon, Shaw Media)

The groundwork laid by the agency’s first permanent team in Joliet led to hundreds of success stories and job placements in that community, but also demonstrated that Aunt Martha’s could bring its distinct brand of caring and community engagement into new geographies and make an impact even as the new kid on the block.

In Joliet, we grew to provide services like Family First, Title XX Counseling, Teen Parent Services, Community Service Program, Unified Delinquency Intervention Services, Placement Stabilization, Comprehensive Community-Based Youth Services, Parenting Training, and Housing Advocacy. And we’d go on to replicate that model in responding to the needs of other communities, including places like into Kankakee, Oak Forest, Elgin and Aurora.

Westward Expansion

Before setting up shop in the historic* Barber Building at 68 N. Chicago Street in downtown Joliet, Aunt Martha’s westward expansion included an office in Frankfort (location decribed only as Rt. 45/LaGrange Rd. and White St.) and the New Lenox “outpost” office (pictured below), located at Rt. 30 and Williams St.

*Note: It probably wasn’t considered “historic” in 1984.

Aunt Martha’s is known for a unique approach to care coordination and a comprehensive, integrated care model, ensuring that all those we serve have access to the services that get and keep them well. While many factors led to adopting this approach, our collaboration with Columbia University in New York established best practices and provided a scientific basis.

In 2002, Federally Qualified Health Centers across the country applied for this coveted opportunity to work with Columbia, and Aunt Martha’s was honored to be one of three chosen to partner with psychologists and researchers with extensive knowledge on adolescent depression and substance use disorders. Our clinics began screening for depression in primary care visits by using a modified version of the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), a quick depression assessment used to evaluate whether the patients required additional care and support based on the severity of their responses. This study tested various ways to improve the quality of care for these teens and young adults, tracking their scores on the PHQ-9 after implementation of a chronic care model.

This model encouraged a collaborative effort across all providers – nurses, behavioral health case managers, data managers, physicians, and medical directors to ensure that all aspects of the teen’s life were reviewed and addressed to improve their condition and lower their measures of depression or substance use disorders. By using this chronic care model and tracking the PHQ-9 scores, the team at Aunt Martha’s and the partners at Columbia were able to track positive results of this integrated care coordination. The positive results allowed the providers to continue to learn and adapt, meeting the needs of the adolescent patients and participants where they needed it, including an early adoption of telemedicine and texting to communicate in the best and quickest ways possible.

Elizabeth Duke, Ph.D., was the HRSA administrator when Aunt Martha’s was invited to join the Health Disparities Collaborative in 2002. By the time Dr. Duke visited us six years later to announce the latest expansion of our mental health services, Aunt Martha’s health centers had grown from serving 6,100 patients to over 62,000 patients. Pictured from left to right are: Dr. Jennifer Byrd, Aunt Martha’s former medical director; John Annis, representing Aunt Martha’s board of directors; Dr. Elizabeth Duke, HRSA Administrator, 2002-2009; Raul Garza, Aunt Martha’s current President and CEO; Gary Leofanti, Aunt Martha’s founding President and CEO.

Raul Garza, Aunt Martha’s President and CEO, recently joined Comcast Newsmakers to talk about current issues facing Illinois’ child welfare system, including where youth are being locked in hospitals longer than necessary, economic issues and the organization’s model of Integrated Care.

Aunt Martha’s has provided health care services for most of our 50-year history. We opened our school linked health center in Chicago Heights in 1995.

Joint Commission Accreditation – 1997

After several years of preparation, Aunt Martha’s earned its first accreditation from The Joint Commission (then the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations – or JCAHO) in 1997. According to Aunt Martha’s employee newsletter, only about 5% of health centers, and just 2% of child welfare agencies in the country were accredited at the time.

A Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) – 1999

Only two years later, in 1999, Aunt Martha’s proudly earned its status as a Federally Qualified Health Center. Since then, we’ve consistently earned awards as a National Health Center Quality Leader, serving communities with the greatest need across the state of Illinois.

The success of Aunt Martha’s continued through the decades because of the dedication to an integrated health care model, and staying true to the belief that a person cannot be well until all of their needs are met – medical, behavioral, social, housing, employment, family life, and beyond. The increased focus on expansion and improvement of the clinics and health care allowed Aunt Martha’s to continue its great service of the youth and children in crisis, allowing for real collaboration and coordination of their care to give them the best chance for success.