Nearly 300 people sought help at a Texas County behavioral health clinic in 2024, marking a sharp uptick in the number of individuals seeking treatment.
Southeast Missouri Behavioral Health (SEMOBH) reports the number of persons served at its Houston clinic climbed from 159 persons in 2023 to 292 persons in 2024. An increase in staffing, a decrease in the stigma surrounding behavioral health treatment and an increase in the types of services available all contributed to the 83% increase.
The Houston clinic offers individual therapy, co-occurring counseling, community support, peer support, group services, telehealth medication assisted treatment and psychiatric appointments, and other telehealth services. Psychiatric services are for clients who use medication to help regulate behavioral health issues.
“It matches whatever you might find in a bigger city, too,” SEMO-BH Regional Director Fred Utley said. “In a lot of other areas, they talk about having to travel long distances to get the help.”
Substance use and mental health conditions can be dismissed, downplayed or mischaracterized. People living with them can be discriminated against and/or stigmatized, which can then have a negative impact on help-seeking efforts. This stigma can lead to self-treatment, avoidance of care or mischaracterization of these conditions.
“In small towns, everybody knows everybody, and there doesn’t tend to be any secrets. That’s a barrier for a person coming in for services or treatment,” SEMOBH Administrative Support Director Kathy Rawson said. “We do everything we can to minimize that stigma from our standpoint.”
Treatment can be fully covered or partially covered through a variety of funding sources, grants and discounted/sliding fee schedule.
“If they don’t have insurance, that’s not a problem here,” Rawson said. “We have a lot of different types of funding sources that come into play, depending on what their need of services is.”
Southeast Missouri Behavioral Health’s Houston clinic also provides the Substance Awareness Traffic Offender Program (SATOP). Thousands of Missourians complete SATOP programs on a yearly basis to satisfy court requirements for the reinstatement of their suspended or revoked driver’s licenses following citations for driving while intoxicated, according to the Missouri Department of Mental Health.
Southeast Missouri Behavioral Health employs a full-time counselor, a community support specialist, a certified peer specialist, nurse and a behavioral health technician. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the office had just one full-time employee.
ABOUT SOUTHEAST MISSOURI BEHAVIORAL HEALTH
For more than 50 years, Southeast Missouri Behavioral Health’s team members have provided treatment to people suffering from substance use disorders, emotional problems, psychiatric disorders and other crises. Southeast Missouri Behavioral Health offers a variety of services in 13 counties in southeast Missouri. Learn more at semobh.org.
