LISTEN: Wellroot Family Services now offers behavioral health care services for individual, group and family therapy at clinics in DeKalb and Hall counties. GPB’s Ellen Eldridge has more.

two people on a sofa talking with a person sitting in a chair with a notebook and pen

Wellroot Family Services now offers behavioral health care services for individual, group and family therapy at clinics in DeKalb and Hall counties.

Credit: Wellroot Family Services

Children and families in DeKalb and Hall counties now have more access to behavioral health care services including psychiatric care, counseling and group therapy at clinics run by the faith-based nonprofit Wellroot Family Services. 

Providers in Tucker and Gainesville will offer individual, family and group therapy and prevention education. 

"Our mission is to help children and families and prepare them to be healthy, stable, and productive," said Christina Lennon, chief strategy and innovation officer at Wellroot Family Services.

Wellroot’s programs include foster care, family resiliency counseling, kinship care, transitional and independent living for young adults, and family housing, all of which reduce risk of substance misuse and lessens the need for emergency mental health care.

"If we provided a trauma-informed environment for kids, you would see less substance use," Lennon said. "You would see less need for real acute mental and behavioral health, and we know how to do it."

Seeing the process through is the key to saving human and economic expenses, she said, which they accomplish when serving families holistically. Parenting coaching has led to reduction in household hostility and over-reactivity by as much as 30%. 

"And so families are preserved," she said. 

Moving upstream means helping the sickest people heal so they can use their trauma to inform others and stop the cycle.

"We know that when a child is in a trauma-informed environment, and believes that they're safe, believes that there's someone listening to them, believes there's something they can talk to — It's basically a vaccine for future trauma," Lennon said.

Tags: Health  caregiving  Georgia  Behavioral crisis calls  Mental Health  children  GPB News 
GPB’s Health Reporting is supported by Georgia Health Initiative

Georgia Health Initiative is a non-partisan, private foundation advancing innovative ideas to help improve the health of Georgians. Learn more at georgiahealthinitiative.org