Morgan County residents will soon have access to an Advantage Behavioral Health site within the county.
During its Sept. 3 meeting, the Morgan County Board of Commissioners approved a lease for Advantage to rent out space at the FSA building located at 205 East Jefferson St., Madison.
Advantage serves as a Community Service Board (CSB), which administers, operates, and provides disability and health services for 10 counties, including Morgan.
County manager Adam Mestres said Morgan currently has over 150 residents who receive voluntary counseling for mental health or substance abuse/addiction from Advantage offices in Greene, Clarke, or Walton counties.
According to Mestres, CSB representative Frusanna Hayes told him last month that the CSB added a clinician to serve Morgan County full-time, but they were looking for office space there.
“We’ve been trying to get them to fund [a clinician] here so our people don’t have to go out of the county, and we just happen to have some space available,” Mestres said.
The space at the FSA building has been vacant for over six years, and Mestres said Advantage believes the space will be “more than adequate” for what they need to provide services. He added that the lease provides the space at no rental costs, considering the county's need for mental health services. Advantage will cover their portion of the costs for all utilities, and will supply all furnishings and equipment needed for the space.
Mestres said Advantage should be ready to see patients at the Morgan site in a few weeks. The clinician will see patients by appointment, and services will be provided at either no cost or on a sliding scale, depending on income. Mestres said Advantage may add more full-time clinicians as services develop, and Advantage has plans to market the new site to the community.
“Mental health is an issue that comes up quite a bit in the state of Georgia,” Mestres noted. “It’s a priority for our state association and county commissioners, and there’s a national platform on mental health services as well. It’s exciting that we’ll have someone full-time here in Morgan to serve our folks and others [from the region] who may want to come here as well.”
“I think this is a very much-needed service,” board chairman Bill Kurtz added. “I think that it’s very good that the county can provide this here in Morgan County, and that we have space that is totally underutilized that we can provide.”