T. J. ROYAL
Staff Writer
May 21, 2008 10:55 am
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The Beacon Center, the Local Management Entity (LME) for Mental Health services in Edgecombe, Nash, Green and Wilson counties, held a luncheon Tuesday at the Edgecombe County Administration Building.
The luncheon was called "Lunch and Learn." Its purpose was to bring government personnel, mental health service providers and community members together to learn more about what The Beacon Center offers.
The center, with its offices in Rocky Mount, serves as the four-county area's link to appropriate mental health service for those people who need it. The center does not provide actual care; it is an information, networking, referral and scheduling service that places people with appropriate medical care providers.
For example, if a person with mental health needs related to substance abuse referred to the center, they would likely be placed with a different provider than a person with depression.
The Beacon Center is a product of North Carolina's adjusted approach to mental health care. The current organization, which employs more than 40 people, was formed from two previously separate entities; the Nash and Edgecombe County Mental Health Center, and the Green and Wilson County Mental Health Center.
The two were consolidated into one organization last July, which was then renamed The Beacon Center.
Bobby Jones, The Beacon Center's director of policy and compliance, said the consolidation took place because of state laws that required LMEs to service no fewer than 200,000 people. Neither Wilson/Green nor Edgecombe/Nash Mental Health centers equaled 200,000. Today, the current Beacon Center provides services for 247,000 people in all four counties.
Of the people who attended the luncheon, Katrina Porter, a case worker with the Edgecombe County Division of Adult Probation and Parole, said she came to find out more information about the services The Beacon Center provides. Porter said she has a caseload of 98 people, and up to 40 of them receive medical services related to substance abuse.
Before the luncheon, Porter said the center's resources seemed limited. But after the luncheon, she knows it is a referral agency and not a medical care provider.
Carol Cobb, an Edgecombe County Public School social worker, said she came to Lunch and Learn because there are "a lot of students who are consumers" of mental health services in the area. She said she wanted to "hear updates on what (services are) available" through The Beacon Center, and to let the parents she serves know about them as well.
Surveys were handed out to the 40 people who attended the luncheon. On one of them, an anonymous respondent said that the presentation gave "good information.
"(It) helps to make sense of all of these agencies that have 'popped' up out of the blue to provide mental health/mentoring services," the respondent said.
Karen Salacki, Beacon Center director, said that people had been used to "how things were done in 2001" for their psychiatric needs, before North Carolina made extensive mental health reforms.
Before 2001, Salacki explained that people first would approach the county's Department of Social Services with psychiatric care questions, and then have DSS refer people to the Mental Health department.
Since July, however, people within the four-county area have had The Beacon Center as a direct resource for their mental health care needs.
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