“People don’t know what we do,” laments Tammy Dalton, executive director of Friends of Advantage, a 501c3 nonprofit foundation that supports Advantage Behavioral Health System, which provides behavioral health, developmental disability, addictive disease services, and for 10 counties in northeast Georgia, including Boom’s circulation area of Clarke, Oconee, Greene, Madison, and Jackson. Older adults make up 24 percent of Advantage’s clients.
Partially funded through the state, Advantage provides those services not only for those with very few resources, but also for those with private insurance or self-pay on a sliding fee scale. That includes individual, group and family therapy as well as detoxification and medication assisted treatment for opioid use disorder. In addition, Advantage has supported housing, supported employment, crisis intervention, case management and medication assistance programs.
Friends of Advantage works to bridge the gaps that the government, family or insurance don’t cover.
“If we, personally, don’t have a challenge, we know someone, either family or a friend, who does,” says Dalton, although it’s noteworthy that 20 percent of older adults have a co-occurring mental health and substance use diagnosis. “We try to meet people where they are.”
Friends of Advantage bridges the gaps that insurance, grants, the government or families can’t cover. To that end, they hold several fundraisers throughout the year, including the second annual “Health Meets Hope” 5k Run & Walk scheduled in April in each of the counties Advantage serves.
