New substance abuse facility in rural N.C. to fill urgent need

NAGS HEAD, N.C.

Substance abuse is considered to be a widespread problem in Dare County, where drinking for some starts when they're in middle school, and many arrests are alcohol- and drug-related.

Until recently, t reatment options were limited, and even if help could be found, the wait was long.

Two years after the county launched a model community-based substance abuse program, the region's first outpatient treatment center, New Horizons, has opened its doors.

"We've got so many in Dare County who need help," Dare County Board of Commissioners Vice Chairman Allen Burrus s aid at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday. "Before April 2006, we were struggling on Hatteras Island. We were losing our young people. They were dying."

Burrus spurred the initial community round table in Buxton that April after a family crisis made him realize the lack of available help for drug abuse in the county. That meeting led to the involvement by the state.

By November 2007, Anne Thomas, director of the county's Department of Public Health, had completed an assessment of available resources, needs and costs to establish a prevention and treatment program.

Since fiscal year 2007, Dare County has provided $500,000 for the program, with matching funds provided by the state.

Thomas said in an interview that the assessment, done from 2005 data, revealed that substance abuse rates in Dare County was higher than the state overall. For instance, 50 percent of suicides in Dare were related to drugs and/or alcohol, versus 26 percent statewide, and 40 percent of vehicle accidents were related to substance abuse in Dare, versus 21 percent statewide.

New Horizons is designed to be accessible to anyone who needs help, regardless of the ability to pay, Thomas said. People can come through referrals or on their own. Services include group and individual counseling, family support and an after-hours help line.

"We were told over and over again that people could not get help right away," Thomas said. "We are able to get people directly into a facility, when they used to have to wait."

Program manager Sheila Davies was hired in April 2007 at the facility, which opened in June this year. Since then, 72 clients - 13 of them adolescents - have been served; Thomas said one-half of them are self-referred. There are 10 county staff members, three of whom are community counselors who visit clients at their residences. The program also contracts with clinical service providers.

Thomas said Positive Action, a nationally recognized character-building and substance abuse prevention program, was started in Dare County schools last year in grades six through nine; this year it was expanded to grades three through 10, and within the next two years, all grades will have the program.

A six-bed de toxification facility, ideally with a short-term rehabilitation treatment program on the premises, will be added as soon as the county can find a site. The program also is working with the University of North Carolina and College of the Albemarle to train substance abuse counselors.

As a model for the state, the program will be evaluated early next year to determine what is working and what needs improvement, Cynthia "Syd" Wiford, clinical assistant professor at UNC at Chapel Hill School of Social Work, said after the ribbon cutting.

Dare's program so far shows every indication of being a success worth replicating in other rural, underserved areas, she said. But the ability of everyone to come together so quickly and cooperatively is a remarkable feat that may be tough to duplicate elsewhere, she said.

"This came around because the community was so impassioned," Wiford said. "The community has to get past the stigma, and this community did."

Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711, cate.kozak@pilotonline.com