During Mental Health Month in May, Sweetser has partnered with Lee and Amanda Prior, the owners of 10 Domino’s Pizza stores in Maine, to deliver a special message: that support is available in these challenging times. Through the delivery of thousands of flyers on pizza boxes, the community mental health provider invites individuals and families to try the free and confidential online wellness tool, myStrength.

“This self-help site is a great resource and complement to the clinical work we are doing to help improve the overall health and wellbeing for people in communities we serve,” said Sweetser Medical Director Marc Kaplan, DO. “myStrength supports the whole person: mind, body and spirit.”

Other 24/7 support is available for Maine residents: the Maine Crisis Line at 1-888-568-1112; and the Intentional Warm Line at 1-866-771-9276.

myStrength has online exercises to help cope with daily challenges including during COVID-19. Check out the links below, or visit sweetser.org:

Staying Connected While Social Distancing

Managing Time at Home with the Kids

Parenting in Challenging Times

Keeping Your Relationship Strong

Changing Plans and Handling Disappointment

Coping Skills

Sweetser is a nonprofit community mental health provider with a statewide network of care for mental and behavioral health, developmental, and educational support for children, families and adults. The organization is the mobile crisis services provider in more than half of the counties in Maine. Visit sweetser.org for more information.

Domino’s stores owned by Lee and Amanda Prior include: 496 Stillwater Ave., Old Town; 6 Clinton St., Bangor; 42 Elm St., Waterville; 220 Park St, Rockland; 974 Main St., Sanford; 621 Main St, Gorham; 58 Ossipee Trail, Standish; 14 Heathwood Dr, Windham; 379 Main St., Presque Isle; and 127 North St, Houlton.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Intentional Warm Line has increased staff statewide by 60% to support all residents of Maine. It’s more important than ever to connect those in recovery from mental illness with the support they need. Staffed 24/7 – peer to peer phone support is available for adults by calling toll-free from anywhere in Maine at 1-866-771-9276 (WARM).

Beginning in April 2020, Sweetser and the Maine Center for Disease Control & Prevention began running ads promoting help for those who need it. One ad promotes the Maine Crisis Line and the Suicide Safer Care Training Portal, and the other promotes the Maine Crisis Line and the Intentional Warm Line.

Maine Crisis Line 24/7: 1-888-568-1112

Intentional Warm Line 24/7: 1-866-771-9276

Suicide Safer Care Training Portal

The York Health Newsletter has resources for the York area, including Sweetser, as well as general tips.

We are proud to provide high quality, specialized eating disorder treatment using HIPAA-compliant telehealth methods to support our patients and their families.

In our telehealth format for our therapeutic services and programs, we uphold the utmost safety standards for our patients, their families, and our staff. This includes our telehealth partial hospitalization program (PHP), intensive outpatient program (IOP), outpatient therapy program, and evaluative services.

As a result of providing our programs via telehealth, our partial hospitalization program will be offered for 5 hours daily and no off-campus housing options will be available at this time.

For more information about the NEED program, please contact our intake office at 207.294.4522.

Jamming for Suicide Prevention & Awareness and other events hosted in February by Sanford civic groups raised a total of $15,333 for Sweetser programs.

Each organization held their own fundraiser and it culminated with a benefit concert Feb. 29 with performances from Whiskey Bent & Hell Hounds, Texas Pete, Southbound, Barfly’s, Stone Free and Northern Charm at the Sanford Elks Lodge.

We are so appreciative of the amazing volunteers who dedicated their time creating and hosting this fundraiser on behalf of suicide prevention/awareness: AmVets Post 3, Sanford Elks Lodge #1470, Sanford VFW & Auxiliary Post #9935, and Wolves Club. Thank you so much!

Briana Ciallela wrote a blog for the UNE School of Social Work website. She is an intern at Sweetser’s New England Eating Disorders (NEED) Program.

This article originally appeared on the Eating Disorders Association of Maine website. It was written by Briana Ciallela, a clinical intern for Sweetser’s New England Eating Disorders (NEED) program. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology from Bard College and is currently a Master of Social Work candidate at the University of New England.

February 24th through March 1st, 2020 is National Eating Disorders Awareness Week (NEDAW). As a social work intern at the New England Eating Disorders (NEED) program at Sweetser in Saco, Maine, it has been exciting to learn about treatments for eating disorders. Since my time at NEED, I have observed how planning recovery skills is critically important for treatment and have seen firsthand how this can make a difference. In treatment, these skills act as patient coping options and go hand-in-hand with the support that clinicians offer to individuals struggling with these devastating conditions. In honor of NEDAW, here are seven basic eating disorder recovery skills.

1. Ask for help. Encourage patients with eating disorders to take advantage of their support systems and ask for help. For some, asking for help can be difficult to get the hang of, but ultimately it is an important, and often crucial, long-term recovery skill.

2. Expand social environment. Surrounding oneself with positive relationships has been proven effective in the treatment of eating disorders (de Vos et al., 2017). Help a patient to identify current supports and then look beyond these supports to other potential family members, friends, family of choice members, coworkers, etc. to expand the recovery support circle. Having a rich social network is critically useful to finding strength and achieving recovery.

3. Accept valid criticism and reject invalid criticism. Criticism is never easy. When an individual is suffering from an eating disorder, harsh criticism can feel even more devastating. Valid criticism and invalid criticism are quite similar to fact and fiction. Valid criticism (e.g., describing the importance of nutrition for general health and well-being) can provide knowledge to the patient. Invalid criticism, on the other hand, is often hurtful and offers no fact-based information about the importance of nourishing the body and working toward recovery.

4. Reality checking/ mindfulness. When situations are really tough, uncomfortable, or can seem impossible in the moment, encourage patients to take a few moments to ground themselves and focus on the facts. Ask patients to take a moment to put their feet flat on the floor, take a few deep breaths, and focus on their sensory experience. Ask patients to remind themselves of the realities of the moment. If this is difficult to do, ask a patient to consult with a trusted confidante to explain a situation and test the reality of their appraisal of the situation.

5. Assertiveness. Encourage patients to not only be assertive with others, but also with their eating disorders. The individual is in control of their recovery and it is important to let the eating disorder understand that. Additionally, allow patients the privilege of being assertive about their needs when communicating with others throughout the duration of their recovery.

6. Boundary setting. Encourage patients with eating disorders to set distinct boundaries around people and/or situations that feed into their eating disorder. Hurtful words or actions from others have the potential to induce feelings of toxic shame, making individuals feel worse about their bodies and emotional state. Setting appropriate boundaries, particularly during triggering times, and engaging in proactive problem solving to identify these boundaries ahead of time is paramount for relapse prevention.

7. Distress tolerance. Patients with eating disorders are practicing distress tolerance every time they sit down to complete a difficult meal or snack, as they are confronting significant fears. It is important to survive very anxiety-provoking situations during recovery. Once one feared situation is confronted repeatedly, this often generalizes. As therapists, allowing patients to experience this distress and tolerate it is at the foundation of most evidence-based treatments for eating disorders.

References:

De Vos, J.A., LaMarre, A., Radstaak, M. et al. (2017). Identifying fundamental criteria for eating disorder recovery: a systematic review and qualitative meta-analysis. Journal of Eating Disorders 5, 34. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40337-017-0164-0

In case you haven’t heard, a Sweetser employee started 2020 off right winning a special holiday drawing for Powerball in New York City, as reported by WABI 5 in Bangor. Blaine Marston works at Developmental Services in Bangor and his response to everyone’s question – “now that you’re a millionaire, will you quit your job?” He told a local TV station, “That’s the biggest question everyone’s asked me, including my consumers at Sweetser, my staff at Sweetser, they’ve asked me if I was going to quit, and I was like, ‘no, no, no!’ I entered the field because I love people, I’m going to continue to do that.” Congratulations, Blaine, and thank you for your dedication and support of our clients!

Sweetser has been recognized by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as a TCPI (Transforming Clinical Practice Initiative) Exemplary Practice. 

A formal Letter of Commendation was presented to the Northern New England Practice Transformation Network (NNEPTN) team in celebration on September 11, 2019.

In 2016, Sweetser partnered with NNEPTN, led by Maine Quality Counts (now Qualidigm) to engage in quality improvement efforts to enhance the way we provide services.  Through this partnership and funding from CMS, Sweetser was provided with local and national resources, including a dedicated practice facilitator and a 22-milestone roadmap to ensure our success in practice transformation.  Over the last 3 years, Sweetser has engaged a team of staff, clinicians, and leaders across the organization to select meaningful measures related to the care we provide, build a system to collect and review clinical data, operationalize changes to achieve our aims, and – most importantly – improve our quality of care. 

As a graduate of practice transformation, Sweetser is recognized as a leader in Value and Quality of Care at both the state and national level.  Graduation is intended to position a practice to engage in alternative payments models.  Sweetser is currently engaged in multiple value-based payer contracts, buoyed by its success in these ongoing Quality efforts.

During celebration activities, the NNEPTN team took time to reflect on how this experience has had an impact beyond the milestones.  They realized the significance of data collection to identify areas of need, how to work together to address them, and how to speak “report writer” language.  They recognized external achievements, such as successful attestations in Meaningful Use and Merit-based Incentive Payment Systems (MIPS).  They recognized that through this process, they experienced aspects of learning, skill building, connecting, supporting, encouraging, and creating vision together as a team.

The work of this dedicated team continues, and will expand to include in partnership all programs and departments within the agency.  Congratulations on this achievement.  Here’s to many more!