This is part four of the Camden News series on mental health. This week we will focus on two locally available resources: New Haven Counseling and Tru Story Counseling.
While Southern Arkansas does not have the multitude of mental health care options that other areas have, there are resources available right here in Camden for those who need help.
New Haven
Newhaven is a comprehensive community mental health center and certified community behavioral health center serving Calhoun, Columbia, Dallas, Nevada, Ouachita, and Union counties in Arkansas, as well as surrounding areas.
Lavana Kindle, Associate Licensed Counselor at NewHaven, said, “If any of our patients need psychotropic medication, they can see one of our nurse practitioners. Every Friday they give injections; so they’re doing really well giving themselves an injection rather than remembering to take the medicine.”
NewHaven also provides youth counseling services and accepts Medicaid.
“We are also on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week; we operate on a rotational basis,” Kindle said.
NewHaven offers several programs.
“One of my favorites is called Day Treatment,” Kindle said. “People with primarily developmental disabilities come together on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays for social engagement, group counselling, learning independent living skills, doing crafts and having breakfast and lunch together. Participants also learn budgeting, meal planning, shopping, meal preparation and cooking skills.
NewHaven can be reached at 870-862-7921
true story advice
Heather Story is a licensed professional counselor and the owner of Tru Story Counseling which recently opened in Camden.
“In terms of what we do: individual counseling, couple counseling, family counseling. Everything ranges from anxiety, depression, trauma, ADHD,” Story said. “Kids ages 4-5 and into adulthood – if they get much younger, it’s hard to understand what’s going on unless you’re really specific in that area.”
“We don’t accept Medicare and Medicaid at this time. Medicare itself can be a bit trickier depending on our license; it’s not that we wouldn’t necessarily want to accept Medicare. Medicaid itself can be very difficult, especially for a private practice,” the story said.
Story said while traditionally, especially in the South, therapy was viewed as a sign of weakness, more adults are seeking counseling and are willing to talk about mental health.
She said: “Here more recently since COVID, it’s more of a discussion I’ve seen since I started practicing…I would say the reason is, there for a while at the start of the pandemic, we were isolated and at home with people who weren’t used to spending so much time at home; there was unemployment, there were layoffs, there were so many other financial issues among the isolation that we hadn’t experienced before. It was so new for everyone.”
Tru Story can be reached at 870-862-2400.
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