Adaptability is crucial to the provision of health care in modern-day America – a fact that hasn’t changed during the 118 years Community Health and Counseling Services has been part of the safety net serving this region.

Adaptability is nothing new to CHCS. The agency’s origin dates to 1883 when a group of Bangor-area churchwomen organized Associated Charities, a coalition of church and voluntary charitable organizations located in and around Bangor that provided relief to families and persons in need.

Over the years, those relief efforts were adapted to place a major emphasis on the plight of the region’s children. Child placement services were initiated in 1948 and included foster home care and casework with children.

By 1968, the agency became known as The Counseling Center, a name fitting its evolving role as a comprehensive community-based mental health center for children and adults in response to 1963 federal legislation and a local United Way community services study.

In the mid-1970s, the agency added a new health services department to provide home health care, and CHCS as it appears today began to take full shape. That was reflected best in 1980, when the agency was renamed Community Health and Counseling Services.

A private, nonprofit agency, CHCS has continued to adapt during the past two decades, in large part to address the de-institutionalization of the state’s mental health population, and as much medical care has been directed away from lengthy hospital stays and more toward home-based recovery.

The agency’s three primary departments, Adult Mental Health Services, Children’s Services and Health Services, are all dedicated to providing a wide variety of programs that respond to current needs in a cost-effective manner.

The CHCS wound care management program is one example of the agency using available technology to benefit the recovery of home health clients.

By using digital cameras, nurses in rural areas can take photographs of wounds to aid in diagnosis and treatment. Care management is aided by electronically mailing photos to the agency’s certified wound care consultant and-or to the client’s physician.

The photos can be reviewed in a matter of minutes, and consultation can be provided the same day.

Before digital cameras were available, the consultant had to travel to the home to see the client in person, a process that might take as long as a week due to travel issues or scheduling conflicts.

CHCS also has sought to enhance its efforts helping younger persons in need to fulfill their potential and to assist adults with mental illness to be contributing members of their community.

The agency’s new Live Independently Forever, or LIFE, program reaches out to a population that until recently often slipped through the cracks of the social service system.

LIFE involves a transitional home for young women between 17 and 21 who are in the custody of the Department of Human Services but plan to pursue college degrees. During their one-year stay at the LIFE home, residents not only have their treatment needs addressed but also receive career counseling, tutoring and mentoring in such areas as study skills and life skills as they make the transition to young adulthood.

Many of the agency’s recent adult mental health care advances have capitalized on a philosophy of inclusiveness. One example is its Multifamily Psychoeducational Group.

The MPG trains family members how to live with relatives diagnosed with mental illness, and also facilitates meetings among the members of different families in order for them to share common issues related to the care of their loved ones.

Meanwhile, the Assertive Community Treatment or ACT team is a multi-disciplinary unit that includes a psychiatrist, psychiatric nurses, community support workers, a social worker-team leader and a secretary, all working together to assist clients as they live independently within the community.

CHCS strives to maintain a leadership role in the delivery of community-based home health and mental health care. And as changes occur on political, economic and medical landscapes, CHCS will continue to adapt in order to ensure continuity in the provision of high-quality health care programs to the individuals, families and communities it serves.

Diane Nelson is the manager of community relations and communications at Community Health and Counseling Services. CHCS is a private, nonprofit home health and behavioral health agency serving the children, adults and families of northern, eastern and central Maine. For information on CHCS programs, call (800) 924-0366.