HER Health

Quapaw House has been filling a crucial need in Hot Springs for nearly 40 years, providing treatment options and programs for people with drug addictions and other behavioral health issues, but only within the last decade has the nonprofit been truly accepted in the community, its executive director said.

“The biggest difference I’ve seen in 11 years is the community is now more accepting and understanding of substance abuse treatment services,” said Casey Bright, who took over as executive director in 2007. “Behind the scenes, they always knew we were a need, but no one wanted to talk about it. It used to be a lot harder for us to do things and for us to grow.”

Quapaw House winning The Greater Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce 2017 Community Service Award for Organization of the Year was “a huge deal for us,” he said. “All these years we were never even considered and then to win, that speaks a lot to what the community thinks of the services and systems we provide.”

Quapaw House began in 1980 with one building located at 400 Quapaw Ave., “which is how we got our name,” he said, noting they now have 39 treatment locations and 80 buildings, including their corporate offices located at 505 W. Grand Ave., which also houses programs such as primary care, medication-assisted treatment and adolescent outpatient.

In Arkansas, Quapaw now provides over 500 residential beds at locations in Hot Springs, Bentonville, Searcy, Pine Bluff and Little Rock, with additional outpatient services provided at 30 clinics across the state. They have facilities in 40 counties, but Garland County “is the only place we offer every level of care,” Bright said.

“We have 15 treatment locations in Garland Coun- ty,” Jessie Ellis, Quapaw’s corporate administrator, said. “Of those, eight are transitional living houses. We have 137 beds within the city limits of Hot Springs, including transitional living and chemical free living beds.”

One facility, Promises, located at 812 Mountain Pine Road, is the only licensed medical detox center in Arkansas, where there is a risk to the patient’s life in undergoing withdrawal involving opioids, benzos or alcohol. “It’s dangerous for them to quit on their own so they have to be under medical supervision. It usually lasts three to five days,” Bright said, noting patients are sent there “from all over the state.”

Ellis said they average about 2,000 patients a year through the detox center, although there are repeat patients. “It’s not necessarily 2,000 individuals,” she said.

One of the things unique about Quapaw is “we’re the only provider in Arkansas that has every modality of treatment under our roof. We can provide every

level of service,” Bright said.

“Basically, our goal is to keep our clients forever so we can ensure they have long-term recovery. That’s part of the reason we have primary care services and day care and transitional living is so our clients are never too far away from us because recovery is on a long-term basis,” he said.

The organization’s growth went into overdrive last year when it acquired the assets of Preferred Family Healthcare in Arkansas, which provided behavioral health services at 47 Arkansas locations, including Health Resources of Arkansas, Decision Point in Bentonville and the Wilbur D. Mills Treatment Center in Searcy.

“Those clients are long term. They are with us forever,” Bright said. “Our goal is recovery, even for mental health services.” With the addition of PFH, he said they now provide about 70 percent of mental health services and 85 percent of substance abuse services in the state.

“We really do a variety of things in the community as a nonprofit and try to fill gaps. We’re identified as a substance abuse provider, but we do a bunch of different things. At one point, our day care had 150 children in it. We did that just because it was needed,” he said, noting women coming out of treatment had trouble finding day care elsewhere.

He said they provide a lot of consultation to other nonprofits having funding or structural issues, even advising new ones how to get started. In some cases, like with Safe Haven Shelter for Women and Children and the Quapaw Community Center, they took over the management. “We knew there was a need for what they offered and they needed to stay open,” he said.

“Even though we’ve expanded throughout the state, Garland County and Hot Springs is our home and we really do try to fill the gaps when we can or when they’re identified.”

Bright said they have 150-plus employees in Garland County and more than 400 statewide now and noted when he started in 2007 the budget was $1.1 million and with the addition of PFH, “we could do $50-72 million.”

“It was like RadioShack bought Best Buy,” Ellis said of acquiring PFH. “We had the stability so we needed to do that, but it’s so much bigger. Not only geographically, but in terms of structure and programs. But if we didn’t do it, we would have had clients with no provider who would have had a huge disruption in their care.”

Bright said the city of Hot Springs has been “amazing for us to work with,” providing advice and services instantly whenever asked, whether it’s an inspection by the fire marshal or help with a code issue.

“Our employees care more about their clients than themselves sometimes,” Ellis said. “We have a very compassionate employee base. We all will go above and beyond. It’s not just a job. It’s a passion. Now the world and the community are getting behind us.”