By Christine Graf
Local mental health practitioners are struggling to meet the tremendous demand for services that has been triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The need encompasses all age groups, and pediatric health experts have labeled the mental health crisis among children as a national emergency.
Licensed psychologist Dr. Debra Pietrangelo, founder of True North in Glens Falls, has been practicing for more than thirty-five years and describes the current need for mental health services as “unbelievable.”
“We are turning people away every day,” she said. “Sometimes 20 to 30 a day. We’ve always had to turn people away, but it’s worse than ever before. I have ten clinicians, and wish I had space for more. There are not enough practitioners out there to meet the need.”
According to Dr. Erin Christopher-Sisk, Ph.D., founder and clinical director of ECS Psychological Services in Saratoga Springs, the need has never been greater.
“In my almost 20 years of being in practice, I have never seen the volume of need that we see and have seen over the past year-and-a-half. Every provider I know is booked solid. Our mission has always been to keep up with needs of community, so we just continued to try to hire therapists and expand staff. We were at seven or eight full-time staff members before the pandemic, and we are now at 20.”
The need is so great that Dr. Catherine Ushchak opened a private practice in Saratoga Springs in August. Although new to private practice, she has been practicing as a general psychiatrist and child and adolescent psychiatrist for 25 years. Many of her school-aged patients have had difficulty returning to in-person learning.