Official: Drum can handle counseling

FORT DRUM — After two years of needing more mental health providers, officials on post say that providers are available and the programs just need better marketing.

"It's time for us to be done saying that we don't have the access we need to get the job done," said Dr. Todd L. Benham, the behavioral health chief on Fort Drum. "It's important to start that shift in thinking to say we have the access to help people. It will get backed up from time to time and there will be a shortage here and there, but we have the resources."

The resources Dr. Benham talked about include a 70-person staff at the Wilcox Behavioral Health Clinic. In 2007, there were 34 behavioral health specialists on post, according to data released in June. Those 70 staff members deal in psychiatry, psychology, social services and the Army Substance Abuse Program.

Eight work specifically with Social Works Services and deal primarily with family, marriage and child therapy. That program had a staff of two in 2007.

While the focus before was getting soldiers the mental health help they needed, the Army and Fort Drum are beginning to focus more on the family. Social Works Services, run by Lt. Donald W. Mott, is reaching out and is about to begin a marketing campaign to help spouses know where to turn.

"It's not just couples counseling," said Lt. Mott. "It's marriage and family therapy. A lot of the spouses will continue to come in after their spouse deploys and continue to be seen by us."

After years of consistent and repeated deployments, soldiers aren't the only ones feeling the strain. Military families are under pressure as well to keep their marriages and families together one deployment after another.

"We can talk about broad strokes, but every soldier and marriage and family is unique," said Chaplain Lt. Col. Kelly J. Moore, the 10th Mountain Division chaplain. "Family wellness and marriage health has always been here, ever since I've been in the Army. Now it just calls for different strategies."

The wait to see a behavioral health specialist has decreased from six to eight weeks in 2007 to two or three weeks this summer. That is in part because of the off-post Fort Drum/Samaritan Medical Center Clinic, 165 Coleman Ave., Watertown, which had 10,000 visits from June 2008 to June 2009.

The marketing campaign that Dr. Benham and Lt. Mott have planned will begin with the start of the next fiscal year Oct. 1. It will include a new Web site, distribution of fliers and brochures and additional meeting briefings. Lt. Mott said that he has the providers to see family members, but sometimes spouses don't know which number to call or which office to visit.

There is an appointment hot line, 772-2778, that is intended to make primary care appointments at Guthrie Medical Clinic. Social Work Services has a separate phone number to schedule therapy appointments, 772-3623.

"We are a lot more robust than we've ever been before and we have more providers than we've ever had," he said. "We just need to market it better and need to look at other ways to get the information out there."