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VALLEY — Mental health services in the east Alabama region aren’t new. It goes back to the 1960s. What is new is the name of the principal provider. What had been known as East Alabama Mental Health since 1967 has undergone a name change. It’s now known as the Integrea Community Mental Health System.

Jimmie Dickey, its director and chief executive officer, was the guest speaker at the Monday meeting of the Valley Lions Club and talked about what Integrea means for the east Alabama region that includes Chambers, Lee, Russell and Tallapoosa counties.

“Demand for mental health services from individuals and community partners has grown exponentially over the past several years,” he told members of the club. “Visibility and education regarding what we are here for is vitally important. We need for people to know who we are and how people can be sent to us.”

Integrea has three major goals:

• to provide effective access to care,
• to maintain appropriate stewardship of community and state resources, and
• to ensure that efforts/services won’t be duplicated.

Dickey said the name Integrea Mental Health System was chosen to emphasize the importance of integrated service offerings. “In order to achieve the greatest outcomes possible,” he said, “a comprehensive array of integrated services in integrated settings must be offered. Our specific ability to do this sets us apart. Adding the EA suffix helps us keep a reference to our region.”

Integrea has a governing board made up of the four counties and seven cities included in the formation of East Alabama Mental Health. The seven cities are Alexander City, Auburn, Dadeville, LaFayette, Lanett, Phenix City, and Opelika. Chambers County is represented by Probate Judge Paul Story, Sheriff Jeff Nelson and Rev. George McCulloh. LaFayette is represented on the governing board by Deanna Hand, Jason Kelly and Sheila Leverette. Lanett has yet to appoint its three representatives.

Through its executive committee, the governing board delegates the daily operation of the system to Dickey, the director and CEO.

Dickey said that Integrea provides a full range of integrated mental health and substance abuse services. 

“We do not refuse those services to anyone based on age, lack of insurance, inability to pay or if the need of an individual is too severe or intense,” he said.

Integrea has eight outpatient offices, 19 residential facilities, 60 schools (and counting), one crisis stabilization facility and two-day treatment facilities.

Services provided in Chambers County over the past 12 months include:

• serving 1,716 county residents and their families;
• providing 404 bed days at the crisis stabilization unit;
• providing more than 5,000 hours of outpatient clinical services and 838 hours of outpatient psychiatric services;
• expanded access to 24-hour crisis care through mobile crisis teams and emergency services.

Around 46 percent of Chambers County residents who were served in the past year had no insurance and very little ability to pay for the services they received. 

“In Chambers County alone.” Dickey said, “we were left with unreimbursed and uncompensated care of more than $312,000.”

Integrea’s goal over the next five years is to invest in further developing and expanding its services in its four-county region. This is in response to the increasing demand for mental health services. This increasing demand, said Dickey, has resulted in the inefficient and inappropriate utilization of other community resources.

In many cases, individuals in need of mental health treatment are locked up in the county jail. 

Dickey sees the need for a crisis and diversion center. It would have an extended observation unit, adding beds for those voluntarily seeking treatment. This in turn would improve access to those beds that need to be reserved for involuntary treatment in the present crisis stabilization facility and at the East Alabama Medical Center.

A crisis and diversion center would incorporate a new space for temporary observation for those experiencing an acute crisis. This would be a primary alternative to jails and emergency rooms.

Such a center would need to fund 24-hour response teams. 

“These teams would serve as the first point of contact and would be co-responsive with law enforcement and other first responders in determining and linking individuals to appropriate clinical placements,” Dickey explained.

Dickey said there’s also a need to expand existing facilities, or get new ones, to appropriately meet the rising demand for mental health services.

He said it’s time to shift to a new model for mental health care – a movement to being a certified behavioral health clinic. 

“Our current fee-for-service model is inherently flawed,” he said. “It leaves half of the services being provided being unreimbursed. We need a higher quality, cost-based reimbursement model.”

A certified community behavioral health clinic, Dickey said, could create mechanisms for significant expansion of programs and services such as care coordination, primary care screening and the mental health of Veterans. He would like to see this launched by July 2026.

Dickey sees a need to expand our current system of care for those who are experiencing substance abuse. 

“Current necessities for expansion exist in our region for residential treatment and medically controlled withdrawal management units,” he said. “However, state funding support does not. We need to work with local counties and cities to effectively utilize opioid settlement funds to expand targeted substance use treatment services to the community.”

Dickey said that from what he has seen over the years, substance abuse and mental health issues go hand in hand.

“We have to get serious about addressing gaps we have in our present system,” he said. “We have the same problems throughout our four-county area. We have been out of bed space for years, and it’s a problem that won’t go away by itself. We need to expand detox beds. A Stepping Up program that was started in Chambers County is a step in the right direction. It’s a good program. We don’t need jail time to be the only option for those with mental health issues. There are people in jail right now who don’t need to be. They need to be receiving treatment for their mental health.”

Dickey said that the Opelika Police Department had a good program going on right now in the way of crisis intervention. “They have officers trained in recognizing the difference between a criminal matter and someone suffering from a mental health-related matter,” he said. “There’s a lot of gray areas involved, and we need to know how to bridge the gaps that now exist.”

Being a mental health professional, Dickey said, is like the story of the man walking along the beach and finding hundreds and hundreds of starfish washed up on shore. Each one will die unless they are thrown back into the water. He throws as many as he can but he can’t get to all of them.

“We will do what we can, but we can’t save them all,” he said.