Cumberland County has a new mental health and substance use treatment provider.
SouthLight’s Fayetteville office off Ramsey Street near downtown is part of the nonprofit’s expansion into central North Carolina. Now fully staffed, the office provides therapy, veteran services, office-based opioid treatment, community and peer support and medication management.
The services are available to anyone, with or without insurance.
“For too long, the best care has always been relegated to those individuals that had the best insurance or the best money in their pocket and could pay for it,” said Kellie Ross, director of operations of SouthLight’s central North Carolina expansion and director of the opioid treatment program. “Coming here as a nonprofit, we’re opening the door and access to care for people who have not had that opportunity. We won’t turn anyone away for their inability to pay.”
SouthLight is based in Raleigh, where it has two locations. It also has a clinic in Durham. Its expansion into Fayetteville is part of the nonprofit’s effort to become a certified community behavioral health clinic. Certified clinics must provide the following services to anyone who walks through their doors: crisis care, comprehensive access to providers and coordinated care that address mental and physical health.
In exchange, the clinics are eligible for grants from the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services or the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
In 2022, SouthLight received NCDHHS’ first grant awarded to current certified community behavioral health clinics and clinics wishing to receive the designation. The $20 million grant went to SouthLight and four other clinics to expand services into underserved parts of the state. NCDHHS and Alliance Health, the manager of public behavioral health benefits for Cumberland County, flagged Cumberland as a prime place for SouthLight to expand because of its lack of available services.
Cumberland County residents identified mental health and substance use as the top two health issues impacting the county in the latest Community Health Needs Assessment. Yet, local mental health services can be hard to come by, with the Rural Health Information Hub classifying the county as a mental health professional shortage area.
Those who find a provider often have to wait weeks for an appointment, especially at the VA, Ross said. At the Fayetteville VA Clinic, the average wait time for mental health appointments is 52 days for new patients and nine days as of March 3 for returning patients. The Cumberland County VA Clinic has a 25-day wait time for new patients and seven days for returning patients.
Ross said she and her team are ready to provide services the second someone steps through SouthLight’s doors. While she can’t guarantee a full appointment for every walk-in, she or another staff member will conduct a clinical assessment to determine a client’s needs and have them fill out paperwork to make appointments with appropriate providers. She said walk-in clients see a provider within a week.
No client leaves SouthLight without Ross’ personal cellphone number to call if they find themselves in crisis. Ross said she answers the call no matter the time of day.
“My philosophy has always been this: We have 24 hours from the time someone walks through the door and asks for help to either help them or lose them,” Ross said. “And I’m not about to lose them. So if they walk in, I’m going to get them seen and we’re going to get the process started.”
SouthLight Fayetteville has an assertive community treatment team dedicated to keeping someone struggling with severe mental health problems out of an inpatient facility, CEO Adam Hartzell said. He described it as “a hospital without walls” composed of social workers, therapists, peer support specialists and other certified staff.
Clients can also be prescribed medication to manage their opioid use disorder or mental illness and be connected with certified peer specialists outside of the team.
Knowing that Cumberland County has the highest population of veterans in North Carolina, SouthLight Fayetteville offers veteran-tailored services overseen by a veteran. Wade Adair is the office’s veteran peer support specialist and is an Army combat infantry veteran who deployed to Operation Desert Storm.
It was crucial to Ross that SouthLight Fayetteville offers veterans services provided by veterans. As the wife of a Marine veteran, she has seen firsthand the difficulties of navigating VA behavioral health and substance use disorder care.
“I want to be able to offer veterans a therapist who understands them, and I want to be able to offer them services,” Ross said. “I want to increase access to care. I want them to be able to see a therapist and a doctor within a couple of days of seeking treatment, not months.”
SouthLight’s care is not siloed to mental health or substance use. Hartzell said Southlight intertwines care since clients often have both mental health and substance use disorders. According to the 2023 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 35% of U.S. adults 18 and older with a mental health disorder also have a substance use disorder.
SouthLight’s community support teams work with other organizations to meet clients’ non-therapy needs, including housing and employment. The reason, Ross said: Therapy isn’t very effective when a client is worried about basic needs like food and housing. The Fayetteville team is forming relationships with local partners that provide these resources and is excited to continue meeting more.
SouthLight’s care in Fayetteville is provided and dictated by residents of Cumberland and Harnett counties, not their Raleigh base. Ross, who lives in Spring Lake and is a Fayetteville State University alumna, said the entire staff shops at the same grocery stores, visits the same parks and drives the same roads as their clients.
“There’s a connection there that helps people feel more comfortable and more at ease,” Ross said. “There’s a sense of, ‘Oh, you really get me.’”
It was an intentional decision, Hartzell said, as no one knows the county and the kind of care needed better than its residents. That’s also why SouthLight wants community feedback on what other services the office should bring in or develop.
“One solution that works in Raleigh means you’ve got one solution that works in Raleigh. It doesn’t necessarily mean the exact same solution’s gonna work in Fayetteville,” Hartzell said. “So we really are open to hearing what folks want, what they would like to see, what kind of conversations they would like to have.”
CityView Reporter Morgan Casey is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms. Morgan’s reporting focuses on health care issues in and around Cumberland County and can be supported through the CityView News Fund.