VALDOSTA — Six months from now, folks living in Lowndes County and the surrounding area will have a new option available to them when seeking treatment for mental illness or chemical dependency on an outpatient basis.

Officials at Greenleaf, a regional psychiatric and chemical dependency health system and an affiliate of South Georgia Medical Center, recently broke ground on a 5,400-square-foot outpatient counseling center, scheduled to open its doors in March 2003. The $500,000-plus project — which was awarded to Richard Hill and Associates, the architect, and Hutchinson Construction Inc. of Hahira — will expand the current Greenleaf facility located off Pineview Drive.

“We are very excited about the new center,” said Dana Warren, Referral Development manager for Greenleaf. “There is a great need for outpatient treatments in our community.”

Warren said Greenleaf has been offering hospital-based outpatient programs in the area for the past decade. However, services were limited due to space and lack of personnel. She said Greenleaf, which opened its doors 18 years ago, was developed as an inpatient care facility only initially. But over the years, it has evolved into something greater while attempting to meet the needs of those requiring its services.

“This new center will simply provide us another opportunity to do (just that),” she said. “We have been offering outpatient services on a small scale. This new center will allow us to really expand our services.”

Through the new outpatient counseling center, patients will have access to individual therapy, family and group counseling and substance abuse counseling, among other services. Cassandra Jordan, center director, said she hopes to eventually expand the program to include anger management classes.

Jordan said she is in the process of hiring her team, which will include psychiatrists, nurses, substance abuse counselors, licensed clinicians, bachelor’s level counselors and mental health technicians.

“These people will be dedicated to and focused on patients in the outpatient center only,” she said.

Greenleaf operates similar outpatient programs in Albany, Douglas, Tifton and Fitzgerald.

“Insurance and managed care programs have forced people to seek care on an outpatient basis,” Warren said. “We want to help them do that. Our goal is to catch a problem and treat the patient before things reach a level requiring inpatient care.”

Greenleaf’s outpatient counseling center will be open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., Jordan said. She said several after-hours programs will be available, and the center’s hours of operation and offerings are flexible based on the needs of the community.

Greenleaf provides comprehensive behavioral health and chemical dependency services to adults, adolescents, and children. Their mission is to make each patient’s life better by providing the tools necessary to heal the mind, body and spirit.

Greenleaf offers confidential assessments of behavior health needs called Solutions and Care Options through Personalized Evaluation. These assessments are available free of charge, 24 hours a day, by calling their 24-hour help line at 1-800-247-2747.



To contact reporter Jessica Pope, please call 244-3400, ext. 255.