Patient Health Care

MIDWIFERY AND WOMEN’S HEALTH

Midwifery and Women’s Health at Fair Haven Community Health Care believes in a holistic approach to women’s health care.

Women’s Health

We provide a full range of services including:

  • annual gynecological exams,
  • episodic care for reproductive issues
  • family planning
  • sexually transmitted disease prevention and treatment
  • mammography screening services (through a partnership with Yale)

Midwifery/Prenatal Program

Our prenatal program works with over 150 mothers-to-be annually. Our goal is to provide you with comprehensive prenatal care that focuses on medical care, emotional support and prenatal and parenting education for you and your family.

Your care team includes certified nurse midwives, physicians, social workers, nutritionists, and outreach workers. Prenatal visits, education, and postpartum care are with your midwifery team. All births are attended by your midwife at Yale’s St. Raphael campus, with a partner OB/GYN doctor on call if needed.

Our innovative, family-focused approach to prenatal care combines the prenatal visit with childbirth education, group discussion, stress reduction, meditation exercises, and a hospital tour. Expectant mothers and their partners have their monthly health education class and prenatal check-up all in a single visit.

We offer:

  • Women’s Health and Family Planning Services
  • Women’s Annual Exams
  • Prenatal Care
  • Centering Pregnancy Group
  • STD Testing and Treatment
  • Health Education

Mindfulness and Yoga in Circle of Hearts Group Prenatal Care at FHCHC

Since our program begins in the mid 1990s , we have offered Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction and Relaxation as part of our prenatal program. Knowing that pregnancy, childbirth and parenting can be great challenging, practicing mindfulness provides many benefits to excellent mental/physical health.

The FHCHC Circle of Hearts group prenatal care with yoga and meditation has been running continuously for over 15 years, with 6 groups starting every year. The participants meet for 10 sessions along with women who share a close due date. We utilize training in meditation, awareness of breathing, yoga and group discussion. All of this happens along with childbirth education, nutrition, fetal development, sexuality, communication, family relationships, infant care and feeding, stress reduction, self-regulation and emotional health and well-being. Our groups include all lab work and testing along with a field trip to the hospital, films and literature. The participants serve as a great support and resource for each other and those relationships often continue for years through their child’s life.

Visit the Midwives’ Facebook Page

Watch an excellent video about the FHCHC Midwives

ADDICTION MEDICINE

Our integrated program provides both Behavioral Health and Medical Care for patients suffering from substance use disorders and is available at many of our Fair Haven Community Health Care sites. Staffed by board certified addiction specialists and Behavioral Health clinicians with advanced training in the treatment of substance use disorders, our services combine both medication and counseling for patients. All of our services are bilingual.

Behavioral Health services are provided through both individual sessions and group therapy. Services offered include:

  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
  • Relapse Prevention
  • Image Guided Therapy
  • Mindfulness
  • Other Behavioral Health Services

Medical treatment involves the prescription of many treatments known to be effective for substance use disorders, including medications and behavioral treatments for substance use disorders.

  • For alcohol use disorder these include a range of medications that can be taken orally, such as naltrexone, acamprosate, disulfiram, gabapentin, and topiramate, as well as long-acting injectable naltrexone (Vivitrol).
  • For opiate use disorder we care for adolescents, adults, and pregnant women (and their families) using buprenorphine/naloxone (Suboxone), buprenorphine alone (Subutex), as well as long-acting injectable naltrexone (Vivitrol).
  • To reduce harm and provide the optimal safety for patients who use opioids and may be at risk for overdose, we prescribe the opioid reversal agent naloxone, available in injectable or intranasal formulations.
  • We also use effective treatments including medications and behavioral treatments to treat patients who use stimulants, hallucinogens, sedative-hypnotics, marijuana, tobacco and other substances of abuse.

Care coordination is an important feature of the services we provide and all patients in our substance use disorder program receive care coordination consultations.

We work closely with community-based partners to facilitate additional treatments for those patients who will benefit. We have a strong working relationship with a local methadone clinic, the Multicultural Ambulatory Addiction Services (MAAS), located just two blocks from our main clinic site. We also partner with a needle exchange program that provides free, clean injection equipment to patients who are continuing to use injectable substances. The clean needle exchange program has standing hours in our community and is accessible by all patients at least once a week.

LABORATORY

Fair Haven Community Health Care contracts with Quest Diagnostic Services for lab services. You may have your testing performed at the facility located within our sites at 374 Grand Avenue and 50 Grand or at any other Quest locations.

When your provider requests lab tests, an electronic order will be placed with Quest for all lab work. Lab results can be electronically sent to you using our patient portal, MyChart.

PEDIATRIC AND WELL CHILD

A team of pediatricians, family physicians, and nurse practitioners provide routine physical exams and management of acute and chronic illnesses in our child-friendly pediatric wing stocked with gently used, donated books.

The Pediatric Team team works with a dedicated staff of nurses and clinical assistants to provide care for more than 4,500 infants, children, and adolescents. This includes 1,500 children under the age of 5 who are registered for Well Baby Care. Fair Haven provides well baby exams and immunizations for these patients.

Fair Haven’s innovative early literacy program, Reach Out and Reach (ROR) encourages healthy child development and an early love of reading. Children receive a new, age and language appropriate book at each well child visit from 6 months to five years of age. Books include favorites such as Goodnight Moon in English and Spanish. Parents are encouraged to share these books with their children in any capacity they are capable. With additional contributions of new and gently used books from friends, volunteers, the Connecticut ROR Coalition, and New Haven Reads, we are able to offer a book to every child to comes to the center.

Patients select or are assigned to a primary care provider who they see for their well care, management of chronic illnesses, and the majority of acute illnesses. Pediatric staff is on call 24 hours a day to care for newborns and sick children in the hospital, and they will see sick children by special arrangement at Fair Haven on the weekend and holidays.

Most of our children are eligible for coverage under Connecticut’s HUSKY (Healthcare for Uninsured Kids and Youth) health insurance benefit plan. Additionally, the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program provides nutrition counseling and vouchers for food supplements for young children and pregnant and breast-feeding women.

ADULT AND GERIATRIC

The Fair Haven Community Health Center provides care to all ages of adults from 18 to over 100. Every adult patient is able to select a primary care provider from one of two distinct clinical teams, which are comprised of physicians and nurse practitioners. We consider this one-on-one relationship essential for good health care. We make it possible for our patients to establish a comfortable relationship with someone who is knowledgeable about their medical history and needs. Integral members of the teams are the nurses, clinical assistants and social work support staff.

In addition to ongoing monitoring of adults for physical exams and check ups, Fair Haven has exceptional program for cancer screening and the management of chronic diseases, including diabetes, cardiovascular problems, asthma, kidney disease, and HIV infection. The clinic offers free first-time colonoscopies for all patients over the age of 50, and free mammograms and Pap smears for women ages 19 and over. Fair Haven is an active participant in the federal government’s Chronic Disease Care Management Model and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), which focuses on reducing health disparities. This health care model provides care beyond the one-on-one interaction between the patient and the clinician, including support with health education, self management, changes in the health care community, support for obtaining medications, and a computerized tracking system to support the team’s efforts.

The Center assists patients with referrals to specialists. Patients can also see certain specialists, including endocrinologists, hematologists, gynecologists, and infectious disease physicians, at Fair Haven. For uninsured patients, this assistance includes investigating all possible special programs for arranging support for payment of services, including enrollment in various programs for low cost or free prescriptions. Some laboratory work is performed on-site at the CLIA-certified laboratory of the Fair Haven and other lab work is sent to private or state laboratories for analysis. Fair Haven has a computerized hook up with Quest laboratories for obtaining rapid results.

Bella Vista

At our medical satellite at Bella Vista housing complex, the Fair Haven Medical Group at Bella Vista brings health care literally to the doorstep of the residents. With continued funding from the State Department on Aging and the City of New Haven, our program helps to support people to live independently in their own apartments because health care is easily accessible.

The Medical Group’s offices are staffed by a full time Office Manager, Nurse Manager, and a Clinical Assistant. Additionally, medical care is provided by internists who travel to Bella Vista from Fair Haven’s main site. Our services also include a consulting psychiatrist. Each patient is assigned a primary care physician.

BEHAVIORAL HEALTH

Fair Haven Community Health Care offers behavioral health services for all ages: children, adolescents, and adults. The majority of our clinicians are bilingual in English and Spanish. We can also provide care for clients with other first languages using interpretive services.

We provide counseling at all our main locations (374 Grand Avenue, 50 Grand Avenue, East Haven, and Bella Vista). If your child is a student at the Wilbur Cross High School, John Martinez or Fair Haven K-8 schools, she or he can receive behavioral health care through our site school-based health centers.

We are experienced in treating a number of common conditions including:

  • Depression
  • Post-traumatic
  • Anxiety disorders (such as: general anxiety, social anxiety, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder)
  • Mild to moderate substance abuse
  • For conditions that we do not treat or if a patient needs more intensive services, we offer assistance in referring people to the appropriate agencies in the greater New Haven area.

Behavioral Health Services

Our services include:

  • Medication evaluations and medication management (when stabilized some clients will be managed on-going by their primary care provider)
  • Short-term individual psychotherapy
  • Group psychotherapy
  • Screening and short-term therapy for substance abuse
  • Referral assistance to other programs offering a higher level of care or other more specialized services if necessary

How to make an appointment:
You can speak with your primary care provider at any appointment about a behavioral health referral or call Denise Dean at 203-777-7411, x 5271, to receive information about these services and how to get connected for an appointment.

SCHOOL BASED HEALTH CENTERS

What is a School Based Health Center?
Staffed with a nurse practitioner, an office manager, and clinical social worker, students can be seen by a provider for their medical and behavioral health care needs without leaving school during the school day. Receiving care from the School Based Health Center (SBHC) does not have to replace your child’s regular health care provider, but rather supplements your child’s health care team. The nurse practitioner and behavioral health clinician will work with the school nurse and your child’s primary care provider to give the best possible care to your child. SBHC staff share a developmental approach to pediatric and adolescent health, respecting the age, cultural values, and family life of every student.

New Haven School Based Health Centers
We offer medical and behavioral health services at Clinton Ave School, Columbus School, Fair Haven K-8 School, John S. Martinez School, and Wilbur Cross High School.

  • To enroll in one of our New Haven School Based Health Centers, please fill out this online form. If you will like to view the form in another language, please use the translation feature on the top right of the page. See below for more details.

 

East Haven School Based Health Centers
We offer medical services at Joseph Melillo Middle School and East Haven High School.

School Based Dental Services
We offer on-site dental hygiene services at three schools in New Haven as part of the New Haven Public Schools’ Smile New Haven dental program. On site services are offered at Clinton Avenue School, Fair Haven K-8 School, John Martinez School, and Christopher Columbus Family Academy.

DENTAL SERVICES

Fair Haven Community Health Care is proud to provide the following dental services in our spacious, riverfront, dental facility located at 50 Grand Avenue:

  • Dental Exams and X-Rays
  • Emergency Dental Treatment
  • Dental Cleanings for Adults and Children
  • Fluoride Treatment
  • Sealants
  • Fillings
  • Dental Crowns
  • Extractions
  • Root Canal Treatment
  • Dental Prosthetics Including Dentures and Partial Dentures

Fair Haven Community Health Care’s highly trained dental professionals are happy to offer a full range of preventative and restorative care to children and families. As a Federally Qualified Health Center, dental services are available to residents, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.

We accept HUSKY/Medicaid and private insurance, as well as offering a sliding scale for uninsured and underinsured patients.

If your child is seen at one of our school-based health centers, they are encouraged to receive their regular dental care from Fair Haven as well!

Please call (203) 974-0121 or (203) 777-7411 to make an appointment.