The Your Life Behavioral Wellness Clinic Serves West Texas’ Mental Health Needs

The first thing Lori Rice-Spearman, PhD, (Health Professions ’86) did when she became dean of the School of Health Professions in January 2016 was conduct what she coined a “Listening Tour.” Over the course of six months, she drove throughout TTUHSC’s 108 county service area, asking community members what health care challenges they were experiencing.   

“Overwhelmingly, the answer was mental health,” she said.
 
Armed with a focus, she set about putting infrastructure in place to support the mental health needs of West Texas. The Department of Clinical Counseling and Mental Health was added to the School of Health Professions, with the Master of Science in Addiction Counseling added as a new program to the department.
 
Rice-Spearman wasn’t finished. Not only would the school produce more mental health professionals, but its experts would also provide much-needed services. After deciding to establish an in-house mental health clinic for the West Texas community, Rice-Spearman and team searched for a director. When asked, Evans Spears, PhD, CRC, chair of the Department of Clinical Counseling and Mental Health, had no problem providing a candidate: Christopher Townsend, PhD, LPC.
 
Townsend spent more than two decades working as a licensed professional counselor and developed expertise in social work, adjudicated adolescents with addictions and as a trauma therapist. He also served as lead counselor and interim clinical director at the mental health clinic at Wake Forest University for a year.
 
“The clinic will serve the underserved who present with a range of disabilities like substance abuse, mental illness and physical disabilities,” said Townsend.
 
Your Life Behavioral Wellness Clinic serves both adults and children, providing telecounseling as well. Rice-Spearman was adamant that telehealth be involved to help aid providers in rural counties of West Texas and dedicated three of the rooms in the clinic to this effort.
 
The clinic is set to open early 2020.