Mile Square Health Center Increasing Delivery of Behavioral Health Services to Chicago Communities

Posted on August 23, 2024
at left a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair wearing a patterned gray blouse, and at right an African American woman with white hair and wearing a white blouse under a blue jacket, both smiling and posing in front of a background with Cook County Health logos
Allegra Connors, a nurse practitioner who will oversee the Stronger Together initiative at Mile Square, pictured with Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.

Through a 5-year grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the Mile Square Health Center (MSHC) Community Overdose Treatment Access Project will continue to empower community members in the use of opioid overdose services. MSHC is working to expand access to buprenorphine and naltrexone prescriptions and, using a community-based Training of Trainers model, conducting both in-person and virtual training sessions in overdose treatment and harm reduction. To date, training has been conducted at the MSHC main location, the South Shore and Auburn Gresham locations, as well as at the four school-based locations in the Brighton Park, Dearborn Homes, Englewood and Motor Row District communities.

MSHC has also been awarded $500,000 through Cook County Health’s new initiative Stronger Together: Building a More Equitable Behavioral Health System. The funding will help expand access to early intervention and prevention, treatment, support, recovery, and crisis assessment and care. This funding will significantly enhance MSHC’s delivery of critical behavioral health services to the communities served by the Primary and Immediate Care Center in Auburn Gresham.

Modified on August 29, 2024