Casa de Salud Launches Mental Health Collaborative

07/19/2017

Casa de Salud is renovating a building as a home for its Mental Health Collaborative to provide behavioral health services primarily for immigrants and refugees who are uninsured.

The building, located at 1015 S. Compton Ave. and next to its current health clinic, is owned by Saint Louis University, which will lease the facility to Casa rent-free. Construction of the Mental Health Collaborative building starts later this month and is slated to be completed by next January, with service delivery beginning on Feb. 1, 2018.

SLUCare physician assistant Chezna Warner, PA-C, who is on faculty at SLU’s Doisy College of Health Sciences, volunteers at Casa de Salud.

Once the renovation is complete, the Mental Health Collaborative will provide space for four partner organizations to deliver behavioral health services: Bilingual International Assistant Services; Saint Francis Community Services; Saint Louis University Medical Family Therapy Program; and St. Louis Psychoanalytic Institute.

The facility also will include incubation spaces for individual practitioners who, in exchange for devoting a portion of their caseload to Casa’s patients, will receive cost-free space and back-office services.

In expanding its support for Casa de Salud, Saint Louis University continues to live its mission of service to humanity, said University President Fred P. Pestello, Ph.D.

“This new expansion of Casa de Salud hits on Saint Louis University’s core goals, serving those who are vulnerable and most in need,” Pestello said.

“While our primary mission will always be to serve others first, this will undoubtedly provide immeasurable experience for our students who have answered the call to serve in communities around our country and throughout our world."

Saint Louis University is a founding and sustaining partner of Casa de Salud. In 2010, SLU transformed a building at the corner of Compton and Chouteau avenues into a health care center to serve immigrants and refugees who are uninsured.

Casa de Salud is a nonprofit organization that facilitates and delivers low-cost, high-quality health care for patients who do not have health insurance, with a special emphasis on immigrants and refugees. Casa also assists patients in connecting with existing health care providers and working with them to achieve the best possible outcomes. For more information, call 314-977-1250 or visit CasadeSaludstl.org.