Center takes new approach

Daymark Recovery Services will take over mental health services from the county on July 1. The Rockingham County Mental Health Center will also have a new Local Management Entity – CenterPoint Human Services.

“It’s going to be a lot of familiar faces, even though it’s going to be a new name,” said Larry Johnson, human services director for Rockingham County.

Johnson said the mental health center will have approximately 40 employees and a “very high percentage” of them are former employees.

One of the familiar faces will be the new director, Carolyn Carter. Carter worked at the mental health center before opening a private practice in Reidsville and returned to work as a clinician a couple of years ago. Carter called the impending privatization of the center “bittersweet.”

“It is taking on a whole different, new approach,” said Carter. “There’s a real end to an era here.”

Carter said Daymark has already been impacted by the mental health reform and has been “very supportive and very empathetic” of the center’s transition to new management. Daymark has been operating the center’s walk-in clinic services since December. The clinic’s hours will be from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. The center will also have a substance abuse outpatient program from 4 to 7 p.m. weekly.

Carter said Daymark uses group therapy as its primary treatment option. She said that group therapy not only allows patients to be seen in “a more timely manner” but it also gives patients the opportunity to attend groups and therefore receive a wider range of services.

Another change that will result from Daymark’s management of the mental health center is that children and youth services and staff will be housed in the center, rather than in a separate building.

“They will have a separate entrance and a separate waiting area to protect confidentiality,” said Carter. “We’re real pleased we were able to work that out.”

The mental health center will continue to operate in its current location at 405 N.C. Highway 65 in Wentworth, behind the Rockingham County Governmental Center.

Yet another significant change to mental health is the transition from the Alamance-Caswell-Rockingham LME to CenterPoint Human Services as Rockingham County mental health’s LME. The new LME encompasses Rockingham, Stokes, Davie and Forsyth Counties.

Johnson said he believes the relationship with Stokes County, in particular, will be a “natural fit.” People will have the option of going to the Stokes County/Western Rockingham area to seek mental health services or going to the center in Wentworth.

“We’ve had a lot of natural connections to Stokes – the judicial district and the juvenile justice programs,” he said

“We’re going to have access to a lot more services, a lot more options, especially when emergencies present themselves,” Johnson went on to say. “Weekend and after-hours situations will be better (under CenterPoint).”

According to Carter, CenterPoint has a “much larger provider base for inpatient services.” Under CenterPoint, mental health center staff will have access to mobile crisis teams. The teams will go out into the community, assess the crisis and make recommendations about what type of services will best suit the client’s needs. Keeping the “best interest of the client” in mind will be a priority for center staff, according to Carter. She said the center will strive to provide doctor coverage to patients five days a week.

“Out first endeavor will be to address the issue of involuntary commitments, to make the process much smoother for patients and their families,” said Carter. “Our goal is to meet with all the agencies who participate in this process and come up with a win-win solution.”

Under the new LME, the center will have a new access line for people seeking mental health, substance abuse and developmental disability services. The number is (888) 581-9988 and can be accessed 24 hours a day.

At a recent Rockingham County job fair, representatives for CenterPoint said they want to be “a partner in the community as well as an LME.” CenterPoint’s home office is in Winston-Salem, but the company had services providers from surrounding counties at the job fair. Phillips said the job fair was a way for CenterPoint to begin forming relationships with established providers in Rockingham County.

“We’re hoping to continue to work with the same providers that are providing services at the present time,” said Janet Phillips of CenterPoint.

One of the service providers at the job fair was Youth Haven Services, a mental health provider for children and teenagers located on Freeway Drive in Reidsville. Youth Haven Services has a day treatment center for 29 students considered “at risk” because they are having problems in the public school system, said Connie Johnson, Youth Haven’s human resource manager. The youth services provider educates the students in an alternative school environment while addressing the students’ mental health issues. Johnson said Youth Haven Services has recently added a substance abuse program.

The Annie Penn Community Trust recently awarded $34,884 to the mental health center/Daymark Recovery Services for an adolescent substance abuse counselor position.

One of the reasons Johnson was excited that Daymark is taking over the center’s operation is that Daymark is a non-profit organization and therefore able to receive funding from agencies such as the Trust, which also awarded $35,000 to the center and CenterPoint Human Services for the prescription assistance program for mental health center clients.

Johnson said Daymark has been working in a managed care environment for a number of years and he believes Daymark will be “more successful in bringing revenues into the county.” At a time when the state’s proposed budget calls for cuts in mental health while the demand for mental health services is on the rise, Johnson believes bringing in more revenue and stretching dollars further are important considerations to the Rockingham County Mental Health Center.

“There’s a lot of potential cuts to mental health services and we don’t have anything to replace them right now,” she said. “We do feel like our dollars are going to go a lot further under the new arrangement.”

Baines can be reached at or 349-4331, ext. 35.