Key Points:
• The renewal of $15.8 million in contracts will provide behavioral health services for more than 7,000 individuals.
• The agencies will continue to provide services for adolescents and youth in centers throughout Fulton County.
The Fulton County Commission approved renewing $15.8 million in contracts to serve more than 7,000 individuals in the Fulton County Behavioral Health Network during its Dec. 3 meeting.
“This is one of these multi-million dollar amounts that I feel 100 percent great about approving, because I know that this money is being spent for the people, with the people, and in the hands of the right person who is making sure we have the right contractors,” Commissioner Bob Ellis said.
Commissioner Mo Ivory also said she feels great about approving the funding because it is being spent wisely.
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Ivory said when she sees these large figures on the agenda she gets nervous. She thanked Latrina Foster, the director of the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities, for educating her and her team on how the money is being used.
The contracts included amounts not to exceed:
- $4.2 million for River Edge Behavioral Health Community Service Board of Macon, serving more than 1,200 patients annually;
- $3.8 million to Chris 180 Inc. of Atlanta to provide care for 1,200 plus individuals through school-based mental health care at 38 Fulton Schools and other services.
- $1.4 million to the Summit Counseling Center of Johns Creek to provide school-based mental health services for 29 Fulton Schools;
- $3.2 million to Grady Memorial Hospital to provide more than 1,400 individuals with care at the South Fulton Service Center and 675 at the North Fulton Service Center;
- $400,000 to Georgia Hope of Woodstock, Georgia, to provide services for more than 400 patients through Core Child & Adolescent Outpatient – Oak Hill;
- $2.3 million to Step Up on Second Street of Decatur to provide permanent supportive housing services for 250 units.
Five of the contracts run through the 2026 calendar year. The contract with Health Connect America will be from Jan. 1 through June 30, 2026.
Ellis said dating back to 2016, the county had behavioral health and public health operating under the same umbrella in an attempt to provide behavioral health services in-house.
“We were servicing an extremely low number of folks relative to the kind of population that was out there,” Ellis said.
Working with contract providers has been a transformation that Ellis said has enabled the county to serve seven times the number of individuals.