Alliance Health Partners to Open New Peer Respite Center

Alliance Health has partnered with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS), Promise Resource Network and Wake County Government to open a new peer-run respite center in Wake County.  The facility, called The Retreat at Fernwood, began offering its services on December 30.

Community-based peer respite programs are a voluntary resource for people seeking mental health, substance use or behavioral health crisis support. These innovative programs offer home-like settings that are among the least restrictive options for behavioral health treatment, offering 24-hour access to peer support specialists who provide support from the perspective of lived experience.

Peer respite services are an important part of the behavioral health crisis response system because they offer non-clinical support from people who know what it’s like to work through their own mental health or substance use struggles and live a fulfilling, productive and happy life in recovery.

“The Retreat represents an important addition to Alliance’s robust continuum of crisis resources available to members and families within the seven-county Alliance service area,” said Alliance CEO Rob Robinson. “It continues our long-standing recognition of the tremendous positive impact that peers who have their own lived experience with mental health and other emotionally distressing events in life can have on people beginning their roads to recovery.”

The Retreat serves adults aged 18 and older with the capacity to host up to six people at a time for up to 10 days. The peer-run respite center welcomes anyone with or without insurance and without the need for assessments, authorizations or referrals. The respite can be used as a more appropriate alternative to an emergency department for people not in need of an inpatient stay, for a planned or unplanned stay, or as a transition from inpatient services back into the community.

Alliance Health and Wake County each contributed $150,000 to help fund the purchase of the Fernwood property, and NCDHHS provided almost $2 million in funding for start-up and ongoing operational costs for the project. Alliance has oversight of Promise Resource Network as part of its provider network.