Free Medical Clinic to offer counseling services
Christie Derrick in her new office at the Free Medical Clinic with the clinic mascot, Rocky, who visits the office when there are no patients.
Photo by Jana E. Pye
By Jana E. Pye, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
One of the most needed services in the healthcare industry is often the most underfunded – mental illness.
Christie Derrick has been working in mental health counseling for some 15 years. She has worked for Columbia Area Mental Health, the Family Resource Center in Camden, Sexual Trauma Services of the Midlands in Columbia, Santee-Lynches Regional Council of Governments Family Caregiver Program in Sumter and private practice.
“We are sharing a grant with the Kershaw Free Medical Center,” said Kathy Baxley, Director of the Free Medical Clinic of Darlington County. “Christie will also be on site in Camden for three days. We both won a grant from Blue Cross, Blue Shield, to bring mental health counseling into our areas.”
“I’m working with the Access Health Network with McLeod, and the two top diagnoses in the Emergency Rooms are mental health, and dental,” continued Baxley. “So there is such a need. We are working to correct this.”
Ms. Derrick is a licensed marriage and family therapist as well as a trained integrative health coach. She is experienced in treating depression and anxiety, family violence, pain management, grief and loss as well as stress reduction. She received her Ed.S. degree in Counselor Education from the University of South Carolina and a certificate in Integrative Health Coaching from Duke Integrative Medicine in Durham, NC.
“I tell a lot of my clients that I have suffered from depression and anxiety myself,” said Derrick. “I have gotten treatment and taken medication; and I share that because I want to de-stigmatize those services. People don’t understand, it should not be something they are ashamed of. A lot of it is situational; a lot of it is brain chemistry. We have to treat it as such.”
Derrick is at the clinic from noon – 8 p.m. on Thursdays and from 9 – 5 p.m. on Fridays. She will be scheduling appointments with established Free Medical Clinics in her initial phase of counseling with hopes to extend services to the community in the future.
Chronic and persistent mental illnesses are referred to the Pee Dee Mental Health offices; substance abuse issues are also handled by other providers, via recommendations from the clinics.