There is widespread concern about what the pandemic is doing to the mental health of adolescents. In Worcester, a new school-based program aims to address the issue. UMass Memorial Health’s Community Healthlink C.A.R.E.S. Club (Create. Achieve. Respect. Elevate. Succeed) expanded to Worcester East Middle school. Community Healthlink will mentor students and provide counseling, along with academic help.

Dr. Eric Dickson, chief executive of UMass Memorial Health Care, said these factors make the timing of the latest COVID wave particularly tough. “As we started to see this uptick, we were really overwhelmed trying to catch up with a lot of work that had been put off for the last two years [and] dealing with staffing challenges,” he said. “We were starting from a position of weakness in health care, and then you're laying this on top of it.”

UMass Memorial Health has also delivered approximately 8,000 courses of either Paxlovid or the monoclonal antibody therapy bebtelovimab since last July — almost 2,000 of which were delivered since April 10. It also hosts clinics for Evusheld for patients on Saturdays. Dr. Eric Dickson, CEO of UMass Memorial Health, said the health system has expanded the number of monoclonal antibody treatments it can deliver in a day, to 45 to 48 appointments. The center has been operating at maximum capacity for the last five weeks, as the latest surge began.

Speaking on children’s mental health, Dr. Abita Raj, a child and adolescent psychologist with Community Healthlink, said it’s important to keep an open dialogue. 

“Checking in, if you notice something different, talk,” Dr. Raj said. “Talking is so important. Some kids are open and some kids are going to push you away, but the fact that you asked and engaged is so, so important.”

In the new model, a CHL crisis clinical team will respond to certain emergency calls alongside police.

Worcester, MA (May 16, 2022) – UMass Memorial Health – Community Healthlink (CHL) has been selected by the City of Worcester Health and Human Services Division to be its partner for its new “Mental Health Community Crisis Response Model.” In the new model, a CHL crisis team will be dispatched alongside police to certain emergency calls.

There are small-but-critical moments in our daily discourse — a friendly word or an especially kind gesture — that can, without exaggeration, reshape the trajectory of lives.

A smile. Or a handshake. A thoughtful suggestion offered at precisely the right time.

And then a decision is made. A choice is altered. Two roads converge. One path is abandoned, and another carefully followed.

Eric Dickson remembers a moment exactly like that. He’ll never forget the man who helped him then. And how, all these years later, it helped shaped who he became.

The city is working to deal with mental health issues head on using the collective power of several organizations and its task force to reduce stigma and get those who need it help. 

City officials, public health advocates and people with first-hand experience struggling with their mental health said that work is ongoing to end the stigma around mental health at an event Tuesday afternoon outside City Hall. 

That’s something Dr. Eric Alper, senior vice president, chief clinical informatics officer and chief quality officer at UMass Memorial Health, is keeping a close eye on. Currently, Worcester, Massachusetts-based UMass takes advantage of private health information exchanges, like Epic’s proprietary Care Everywhere platform.