CONTRIBUTED TO THE OBSERVER
OPELIKA — East Alabama Mental Health Center will now be known as Integrea Community Men-tal Health System, while continuing to provide comprehensive mental health services across surrounding counties in our area. A ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the name change is scheduled for Aug. 14 at 10 a.m. at 2506 Lambert Drive in Opelika.
As East Alabama’s only comprehensive community mental health system, Integrea serves multiple sites and areas across Lee, Russell, Chambers and Tallapoosa counties, providing comprehensive mental health, substance use and developmental disabilities services. The leadership team views the name change as a significant milestone, symbolizing the integrated mental health care offered to the citizens of East Alabama.
“Through our efforts in filling the gaps in mental healthcare in our community and addressing access to care issues, it became clear to us that one of our focuses needed to be on doing a better job of communicating who we are, what we do and why we’re here,” said Jimmie Dickey, executive director. “Our first step in more clearly and effectively communicating just how expansive and comprehensive our services are is to unify our 50+ existing programs and more than 25 facilities across the region under one new name — Integrea.
“Moving away from having ‘East Alabama’ in our name was the most difficult part of this process,” he said. “Fortunately, we found a way to maintain that reference through including the ‘EA’ suffix. Integrated mental healthcare for East Alabama. This is who we are, and this is what we do.”
Integrea Community Mental Health System will remain 100% nonprofit and governed by the same Board of Directors appointed by local city councils and county commissions. Dickey and his team serve nearly 10,000 individuals in the community every year, strengthening many more through service and support to their loved ones.
For more information, visit integreahealth.org.
