Project: Community Care for Depression
Organization: Cape Cod Free Clinic in Falmouth, Inc.
Falmouth, MA
As told by Tim Lineweaver, Project Director, Cape Cod Community Care for Depression

Wendy and Wilfredo’s Story

On a sunny fall day not unlike today, just about a year ago I was driving to the clinic in Mashpee. At the time I remember feeling somewhat anxious and overwhelmed as I reflected on the past year. It had been complicated implementing the project, four different sites with different organizational structures, with each place having a natural resistance to our asking them to do yet, one more thing. I had also been struggling with the budget and yet another constant worry was the database: with my limited technical skills, how would I construct something that’s safe and flexible enough to do the project justice over the three years of the grant and beyond?

As I threw open the door of the Cape Cod Free Clinic and Community Health Center in Mashpee and walked in, my heart skipped more than a beat when the usually energetic and diligent social worker Wendy Crocker quickly approached me with a solemn face and asked to speak to me privately.

My initial internal reaction was, “Oh no, what now!” Being a worrier, I mentally scrolled through all kinds of worst case possibilities and settled on the most dreaded:  she is going to give notice! I steeled myself for this eventuality as she motioned me into her office and sat down. She looked at me and I quickly noticed a tear in the corner of her eye which ran down her cheek. I could tell she was struggling to maintain her composure. She began to describe a patient she’d been working with, a young man, named Wilfredo who had emigrated from Brazil a few years ago and spoke only broken English.

Wendy said Wilfredo had been born into abject poverty and was victimized by some horrific abuse at a very young age. He had come to the United States to escape the poverty and the abuser in his family. He suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, depression and anxiety. Like many people with severe trauma, Wilfredo suffered from flashbacks: wide awake nightmares in which his trauma is relived.  He had no insurance and had not been able to find the resources for much needed medication or therapy, and didn’t know where to turn for help in his new country with its strange language and customs.

His condition was affecting his work and relationships. Wilfredo was starting to feel hopeless. Then a fellow immigrant told him to come to the Cape Cod Free Clinic and Community Health Center. There he found some people who spoke his language, and he took the depression test also in his native Portuguese and was referred to Wendy. 

Despite the challenges of the language barrier, Wendy had managed to gain his trust and had advocated with agencies to provide on going-therapy. She helped Wilfredo apply through the Prescription Assistance Program and got him some no-cost medication for his PTSD and depression. So far so good I wondered, why the tears?

Wendy passed me a piece of paper that Wilfredo had given her at the conclusion of that day’s meeting. On the many-times-folded, much worried over paper was a drawing. Though somewhat crudely rendered, it had a childlike-elegance and an undeniable patina of truth:  It contained some elements of the flashbacks he’d been suffering: angry violent faces and other frightening images that surrounded and penned in Wilfredo’s self portrait. But to the left of the more disturbing images was a dominant one of Wendy with a reassuring smile and a halo around her head.

When Wendy handed me the paper she began to sob openly. After she had composed herself, she explained that she was truly awed with how much she was meaning to Wilfredo. It was the opportunity to make a difference that led her to social work to begin with.

That’s also why I wanted the job of being the Project Director of Community Care for Depression. I am honored we are able make a difference for Cape Codders who have been disenfranchised by poverty and homelessness, stigmatized and struck down by their addictions and mental illness, and who can’t access needed care because they don’t have insurance or don’t speak English. This is the essence of Community Care for Depression and it’s what I assume to be the essence of the mission all our Local Initiative Funding Partners projects.

Graduates 2006 | Project's Graduate Report | Project's Information Page