By Damien Fisher

Granite State News Collaborative

Rik Cornell, vice president of community relations for the Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester during a 2018 community education presentation at the Girl Scouts office in Bedford. File Photo

As New Hampshire’s community mental health centers made the sudden shift to dealing with the new coronavirus crisis, staff and administrators found an operational foundation was already in place.

“I think that if there is a blessing for the drug and alcohol issue we’ve dealt with, it’s that a lot of agencies that never worked together had to find a way to work together,” said Rik Cornell, vice president for community relations at The Mental Health Center of Greater Manchester.

New Hampshire has 10 community mental health centers in the state, offering a broad range of services for approximately 55,000 people a year, said Jay Couture, president and CEO of Seacoast Mental Health Center Inc.

“We provide prevention services, required seminars for people undergoing divorce, and an entire spectrum of community-based clinical services,” she said.

The centers provide help for children in crisis, adults with persistent mental health issues, and a host of other needs, she said. With needs mounting for people now stuck at home, sometimes with children, Couture said the challenges have been great.

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