Grantee: Asian Counseling & Referral Service
Timeframe: July 2021 – June 2024 | Total Amount: $380,000
Year 1: July 2021 – June 2022. Amount: $120,000
Year 2: July 2022 – June 2023. Amount: $120,000
Year 3: July 2023 – June 2024. Amount: $140,000
The WAPA Nurse Project promotes health equity and eliminates disparities by providing needed primary health education and resources and increasing healthcare literacy for low-income Asian Pacific Islanders with serious mental illness (SMI).
The goal of WAPA is to improve the overall wellness and physical health status of low-income, LEP API immigrants and refugees living with serious mental illness, so they can lead long, healthy, and happy lives. WAPA has brought primary care, dental care, pharmacy, and acupuncture services to reduce barriers, increase access, and seamlessly engage clients in wellness activities, health education and literacy, system navigation, and whole health care management in a supportive community setting.
ACRS’ Behavioral Health Department (BHD) will hire a Wellness Nurse. The Nurse will be knowledgeable in common basic, acute, and chronic health conditions. The Nurse will prioritize work with individuals with high ED visits and high-cost service utilizers. With daily ED visit reports available through the Collective Ambulatory system, we can easily identify clients for engagement. The Nurse will work with clients’ CMs to conduct a thorough culturally competent assessment of physical and mental health conditions, help-seeking behaviors, US healthcare literacy, self-management skills, natural support network, and barriers in accessing ongoing primary care. Together, they will develop a multidisciplinary whole health service plan centered on increasing knowledge and skills for overall health management. This will include lifestyle coaching, wellness activities, and education on healthcare navigation, use of appropriate levels of care, and adherence with medications and other specialty care needs. When even closer monitoring and assistance is needed, frequent check-ins and focused intensive lifestyle coaching will be added by 6 peer specialists who have completed the diabetes self-management education portion of the American Association of Diabetes Educators AADE-7 modules to understand diabetes care challenges in the context of mental illness, including self-care, adherence to medicines and follow-up visits, side-effects of medicines, and disease complications.
About Our Grantee
Asian Counseling & Referral Service
Asian Counseling and Referral Service (ACRS) is a nationally recognized nonprofit organization offering a broad array of human services and behavioral health programs to Asian Pacific Americans in King County. ACRS is the largest multiservice organization serving all the different Asian Pacific American communities – immigrants, refugees and American born – in the Pacific Northwest.
