ATHENS, ALA (WAFF) – North Central Alabama’s Mental Health Center provides counseling services to Morgan, Limestone, and Lawrence County for people struggling with mental health. Now the center is expanding to better serve the youth of the community.
Bill Giguer, a development specialist at the Mental Health Center, said the facility needed modernization due to the increase in patient numbers.
“Our current facility was never designed with the number of people we see here in mind,” said Giguer. “The number of people served by this clinic has increased by more than 20 percent in the last few years.”
The new facility will be located directly next to the existing clinic and will continue to provide the services it has always had, but will be more adapted to the needs of children. Giguer said the facility served approximately 1,300 patients last year, 600 of whom were children.
“The facility we use provides services to both adults and children,” said Giguer. “We just felt that treating children would be more conducive to having our own facility.”
The cost of the childcare facility is estimated to be approximately $ 1.2 million and the Limestone County Commission is providing $ 600,000 in COVID-19 assistance per project.
Commission chairman Collin Daly says the investment in the facility is obvious and that helping children early on will improve their overall quality of life.
“If we save one person from confinement to a mental hospital or prison, it’s worth your while,” Daly said. “The younger we can help people in their lives, the better quality they will get.”
There is currently no schedule for when the facility will be completed, however Giguer hopes it will be ready by the end of 2023.
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