LEWISTON (WGME) — A Lewiston-based mental health provider is merging with one of the states largest behavioral health organizations.<\/p>\n
The merger between Common Ties and Sweetser will create the largest mental health provider in Maine.<\/p>\n
The goal is to ensure long-term stability and expand access to care across the Lewiston region.<\/p>\n
“Now that they are part of Sweetser, they have access to this whole array of behavioral health services,” Sweetser President and CEO Jayne Van Bramer said. <\/p>\n
Common Ties Mental Health Services has provided essential care in Lewiston for more than 40 years to their almost 300 clients.<\/p>\n
The nonprofit Sweetser is one of the state’s largest behavioral health organizations, providing services across Maine.<\/p>\n
Those services including mental health care, psychiatric rehabilitation, case management, crisis stabilization and more.<\/p>\n
“They will have more access to resources, programs and staffing,” Van Bramer said. <\/p>\n
The merger comes at a critical time as behavioral health organizations are navigating growing operational challenges and increasing uncertainty around funding.<\/p>\n
“Our goal as an agency was to find a safe place for the clients, as well as the staff, to land,” former executive director of Common Ties Mental Health Services Karen Bate said. <\/p>\n
For the almost 300 individuals receiving treatment through Common Ties, there won’t be any disruption in care.<\/p>\n
“The more robust the services are under the same roof, it increases the quality of life for the folks that we serve,” Bate said. <\/p>\n
Right now, there are 18 employees at Commons Ties. All but three of them will continue to work for Sweetser.<\/p>\n
The Common Ties facility will temporarily remain on Bates Street in Lewiston. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LEWISTON (WGME) — A Lewiston-based mental health provider is merging with one of the states largest behavioral health…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":433650,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[163,85,46,522,523],"class_list":["post-433649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=433649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/433649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/433650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=433649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=433649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=433649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}