RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — The COVID pandemic has taken a toll on folks’s psychological well being, highlighting a nationwide downside.
CBS2’s Carolyn Gusoff visited a brand new facility on Lengthy Island that may assist residents with the backlog created by the pandemic.
The brand new nonprofit psychological well being heart opened in Riverhead to serve Lengthy Island’s East Finish.
“Different practitioners have waitlists of weeks and months to be seen,” stated Tracey Anderson, with Rise Life Providers, Riverhead.
This new clinic is one reply to a regarding backlog in psychological well being companies worsened by the pandemic.
“You are seeing much more nervousness, despair … I am a grandfather. I needed to keep house for a 12 months and never see my grandkids for a 12 months,” stated Charles Evdos, government director of Rise Life Providers.
A niche in psychological well being care can be fueling crime. Sixty % of New York’s inmates have a identified psychological well being situation.
“And people are those which might be identified,” Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon stated.
Toulon says New York wants to raised prioritize psychological well being for suspects launched with out bail and after serving time. He says jails and society are nonetheless paying the worth for the emptying of psychological establishments many years in the past.
“These people which have psychological well being points are usually not being addressed, and so they’re winding up in our jails all through the state and so they’re not getting the right remedy,” he stated.
In his jails, a re-entry program referred to as S.T.A.R.T. works with inmates earlier than and after they’re launched, pairing them with psychological well being counseling.
“They are not even conscious of the packages which might be out there to them upon discharge, in order that’s the place we are available in. We join them with our group suppliers that handle each the psychological well being and substance use dysfunction points,” stated Vincenzo Barone, deputy warden of the Suffolk County sheriff’s workplace.
They’ve lowered a virtually 70% recidivism charge to solely 11% for individuals who participate in this system.
Toulon says prioritizing psychological well being is about greater than serving to people however is required to make our communities safer.
Rise Life Providers plans to additionally open a second nonprofit counseling location in western Suffolk County in Huntington.
