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50 Anniversary th

Investing in Mental Health. Strengthening our City.

50 Anniversary th

Contents A Letter From Laurie Powell Building for Memphis & Shelby County A Letter From Mark Billingsley A Safe Place Help Not Jail Children & Youth Through Any Door

pg. 4 pg. 5 pg. 11 pg. 14 pg. 17 pg. 20 pg. 22

Need Help Now? Alliance Clinics:

901-369-1410 • 1200 Peabody Avenue, Memphis, TN 38104 • 2579 Douglass Ave, Memphis, TN 38114 • 2100 Whitney Ave, Memphis, TN 38127 • 2150 Whitney Ave, Memphis, TN 38127 • 3810 Winchester Road, Memphis, TN 38118 Peer Support Center • 4088 Summer Ave, Memphis, TN 38122

24-Hour Crisis Support and Appointments Line: Call 901-369-1410 to speak with a trained crisis counselor or make an appointment any time

24/7 Crisis Wellness Campus Locations:

Crisis Wellness Center • 3200 Broad Ave, Memphis, TN 38112 Children & Youth Wellness Center (Opening April 2026) • 602 Malcomb Street, Memphis, TN 38112

50th Anniversary

Corporate Ofﬁces: Alliance Healthcare Services • 2220 Union Ave, Memphis, TN 38104 alliance-hs.org 901-567-3554 The Alliance Foundation • 2220 Union Ave, Memphis, TN 38104 thealliancefoundation.org 901-569-5070

A Letter From

Laurie Powell

Chief Executive Officer Alliance Healthcare Services

or more than fifty years, Alliance Healthcare Services has grown alongside Memphis. We were founded to meet needs that remained invisible to most. Today, we stand as Shelby County’s largest nonprofit behavioral health provider, serving tens of thousands of children, youth, and adults each year across a full continuum of care. The throughline over all those decades is simple: when our community needed more, Alliance built more. We built outpatient clinics when families needed care close to home. We built housing when we saw people cycling between the streets, emergency rooms, and jail. We built mobile crisis and walk-in services when first responders needed a safe alternative to incarceration. Most recently, with the support of public partners and private philanthropy, we opened the Alliance Crisis Wellness Center at 3200 Broad Avenue. This 24/7 facility brings crisis stabilization, detox, respite, outpatient therapy, peer support, and an on-site pharmacy under one roof. It is already transforming how our community responds to mental health and substance use crises. Just across the street, we are now building the Children & Youth Crisis Wellness Center, the first facility of its

kind in West Tennessee. When it opens, children ages 4–17 will finally have a dedicated place to receive traumainformed, age-appropriate emergency care before a crisis becomes a tragedy. None of this happens in isolation. It happens because our city, our state partners, our philanthropic community, and our staff believe that mental health is healthcare, and that every person deserves access to compassionate, highquality care regardless of ability to pay. As you read these stories, I hope you see what I see every day: not just programs and buildings, but lives changed. Parents who finally exhale when their child is safe. First responders who now have somewhere to take people for help instead of jail. Neighbors who move from crisis to stability, and from survival to recovery. On behalf of our entire team, thank you for walking with us, for believing in this mission, and for helping us build a Memphis where you can come to Alliance “through any door” and find hope on the other side. With gratitude,

Laurie Powell, LCSW Chief Executive Officer Alliance Healthcare Services

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Building for Memphis & Shelby County Alliance has continued to grow over 50 years to meet the needs of those who need them.

s the troubles of Memphis and Shelby County have built, Alliance Healthcare Services has built back to meet them. A look at the institution’s timeline shows this time and again. When local mental centers were needed, they got started to create one. When budgets were cut, they found money to press ahead. When drug epidemics ballooned, they created programs to respond. When local law enforcement wanted a safer place than jail for the mentally ill, Alliance opened its doors. Time after time, the organization has simply built more to do more for those in the MidSouth who need them.

1962

Alliance’s history begins with the formation of another agency. The Tennessee Psychiatric Hospital and Institute (now Memphis Mental Health Institute - MMHI) opened as a facility for short-term treatment and research at the corner of Poplar and Dunlap.

By Toby Sells

1963-1965

To understand what Alliance did in Memphis, you have to survey the scene across the United States in the early 1960s. Mental health care was, largely, in the hands of huge, state-run institutions. Memphians in need of long-term care were often taken to the Western State Mental Hospital in Bolivar. So, they and most other residents were often removed from their families, communities, and support networks for long stretches of time. By the 1960s, facilities like these were overcrowded, underfunded, understaffed, and kept mostly off the radar for most Americans. The system was in a quiet crisis. In response, Congress passed the Community Mental Health Centers Act in 1963. Mental health needed to leave those big institutions and be delivered closer to home. This began the decline of those state mental hospitals. The new mandate meant locals needed to create a local model. For the first time, there was federal money to do it. This sparked the creation of what would become Alliance Healthcare Services.

50th Anniversary

1973

Alliance is founded as the Southeast Memphis Mental Health Center, incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Its mission is to “address the mental health needs of an underserved community.” Its first home? The basement of the MMHI building at Poplar and Dunlap. That brand new nonprofit had a home base. It could see patients. It would help heal its community. On the business side, that new nonprofit could raise money. It could drive donations. It could find and get health care contracts from government agencies. It could collect fees from patients and charge insurance. In short, the new nonprofit could get on its feet and sustain itself. It could do it all right in the basement of MMHI, close to a population of patients who would need Southeast Memphis Mental Health Center.

1980s

Needs grew. So, Alliance built. Enough so that 1981 found time for a big change. The organization had grown beyond its southeast Memphis origins. So, the Southeast Memphis Mental Health Center became the Southeast Mental Health Center to better reflect its ex5

panding reach. They simply dropped the “Memphis,” shortened to reflect growth in an irony. In another ironic reduction, the very government that created and funded the new community-focused mental health model decided it wouldn’t pay for it any longer, not directly. President Ronald Reagan’s very first budget in 1982 made real his idea of New Federalism, to give states more control. For Alliance, this meant that the steady flow of federal dollars it had relied on since its inception was gone. Those funds were now given to the Tennessee General Assembly in block grants. State lawmakers could then set the amounts of money in three major categories under the Alcohol, Drug, and Mental Health Block Grant Act. It was a major restructuring of the relationship among federal, state, and local governments. It completely changed the pattern of funding for community mental health centers, creating choppy waters for Alliance. In 1982, federal lawmakers cut the National Institute on Drug Abuse budget by 29 percent, the most severe cut in its history. While heroin, crack, and cocaine were spreading across cities, this cut erased or disrupted dozens of community-based substance use treatment efforts across the country. Alliance remained, navigating the rough seas.

mental illness in crisis would be approached by police officers and effectively routed to appropriate mental health care facilities rather than jail. Alliance’s first walk-in crisis center and its new partnership with MPD made it the default destination for police responding to mental-health emergencies — a major shift in the city’s publicsafety infrastructure. This created a consistent, people2008 focused response. It aligned patients By the mid-2000s, emergency rooms with the help they needed. It helped reduce emergency-room usage. It were overwhelmed with behavioral helped families get help faster. It made health crises. Law enforcement were handling more and more mental-health Memphis safer. calls. Jails were full of people who needed treatment, not incarceration. Tennessee had no consistent, formal way to respond to this growing crisis. That changed in 2005 when the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities (now TDMHSAS) began to standardize and expand crisis services statewide. In Memphis, this meant Alliance. Up against a new, big challenge, Alliance built again. In 2008, the organization launched its Mobile Crisis program. Trained team members would intervene on mentalhealth crisis calls and provide assessment at hospitals, homes, clinics, on the 2013 streets, and more. Right alongside that program, AlliThis was watershed year. Not just ance launched its Crisis Stabilization because the organization got a new Unit. If those crisis situations found pa- name but for the new reach, strength, 1990s tients who needed extra help, this new and capabilities it got. unit offered a five-day, short-term, inThat long arc of returning mental In 2013, Southeast Mental Health tensive stabilization program. It offered Center and Comprehensive Counselhealth patients to their communities had become real in the 1990s. Many drug therapy, medication management, ing Network (formerly Frayser Mental of those big, state-run institutions had and individual and group therapy. Health) officially merged to form Alliclosed or greatly reduced its patient size In this moment, Alliance really beance Healthcare Services. These had and programs. Western State, for excame the backbone of crisis care in the been two of Memphis’s longest-serving ample, closed but reopened in 2010 but Memphis region. community mental health organizations. with only 150 beds, a major reduction. Now merged, Alliance became the Those budget cuts in the 1980s pushed 2009 largest nonprofit behavioral-health many to the streets of their communiThe very next year, Alliance built provider in West Tennessee. The move ties. By the 1990s, the opioid epidemic again, taking its commitment to crisis unified decades of community-based began in America. With no where to go intervention and care to a deeper level. mental-health work under a single and drugs available for self-medication, In 2009, it partnered with the Memnew name. homelessness and emergency-room phis Police Department’s (MPD) Crisis Southeast brought its facilities, provisits were on the rise for the mentally Intervention Team (CIT) at its first walk- grams, and deep ties across Shelby ill. Tough-on-crime policies meant they in crisis center. County. Comprehensive Counseling Netoften ended up in jail cells, too. The CIT idea was born in Memphis, work brought its long history of outpatient care in Frayser and North Memphis. Amidst all of this, community health recognized as such years later after its This alliance created a broad, unified front centers like Alliance became the front development as the Memphis Model. under a single, recognizable banner. line, the safety net, the system for those It revolutionized how individuals with 6

with acute and chronic mental illness. To meet this growing need in the Memphis community, Alliance built again. In 1998, the organization created Alliance Housing Services. This offered patients safe homes, close to treatment and medication. The move expanded Alliance from a place that not only treated patients but also helped to stabilize the community.

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2016

Alliance built again in 2016, this time earning a major national approval and helping to build a new program for the Memphis community. In 2016, Alliance received accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities for its outpatient and case-management services. This meant it met nationally recognized standards of quality, accountability, and improvement. When Shelby County Mental Health Court launched in 2016, Alliance was there because many Alliance team members helped create the program. Under the oversight of the Tennessee Department of Mental Health & Substance Abuse Services, the court offered an alternative to jail for people with serious mental illness. When Mental Health Court was in session in Shelby County, Alliance team members were there, ready to offer assistance in any way they could. This seamless connection between courts and Alliance’s resources helped countless patients. It also established Alliance as a community partner, not simply a health care organization.

2017-2019

State officials saw the results of — and believed in — guiding mental health patients from the justice system and to facilities and the people at Alliance. It showed this belief in 2017 with a $3.1 million Pre-Arrest Diversion Infrastructure Grant to Alliance. That grant was part of a $15-million that year for programs just like these. ”The research indicates people with mental illnesses tend to stay in jail longer and when released, face a higher recidivism rate,” TDMHSAS Commissioner Marie Williams said at the time. In Memphis, Alliance deepened its connection to MPD’s CIT, worked with the Shelby County Sheriff’s office at its jail facilities, and directed many with low-level offenses to treatment instead of incarceration. By then, Tennessee’s mental health landscape was tough. Nearly 20 percent of adults in the state had experienced mental illness. Behavioral health at the time was described as “the worst in five years.”

2020-2022

Alliance continued to see wins for mental health patients avoiding the justice system. So, in 2020 it built again, this time an innovative program that won a state-wide accolade. That year Alliance launched its Crisis Assessment and Response to Emergencies (CARE) program. This partnership went even deeper with Memphis-area police. But it also looped in the Memphis Fire Department. Alliance’s CARE program trained specialized teams to respond to mentalhealth-related 911 calls. This groundbreaking program further diverted people from jail, reduced hospital usage, and helped resolve crises safely on the scene as they happened. For its CARE program, Alliance was awarded the Sam Cochran Criminal Justice Award from the Tennessee branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. By 2023, Alliance had built a lot since 1973. The organization operated 18 locations across Shelby County for outpatient care, housing, addiction treatment, peer support, crisis services, and more. But Alliance was not done building for the mental health wellbeing of patients throughout the Memphis area. The organization announced plans and began fundraising for a new, state-of-the-art Crisis and Wellness Center. The facility was developed by Alliance therapistturned-CEO, Laurie Powell. It would forever change mental health services in the Mid-South. Alliance was building again. This time very literally.

50th Anniversary

2023-2025

In 2022, the Alliance Foundation was created as the dedicated fundraising arm of Alliance Healthcare Services. It was designed to financially support and expand the organization’s mission through philanthropy, community partnerships, and long-term investment. In 2023, the Foundation welcomed its first executive director, Mark Billingsley, marking a new era of professionalized fundraising and ensuring that Alliance has the resources to grow its services and meet the increasing behavioralhealth needs of Shelby County. Ground was broken in September 2023 on the new facility on Broad Avenue. In attendance for the event was Tennessee Governor Bill Lee, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland, Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris, Sheriff Floyd Bonner, other elected officials, scores of industry professionals, the press, and members of the public. By November 2023, the Alliance Foundation had raised $24.5 million for the Crisis and Wellness center. That month it secured a $1 million challenge grant from the City of Memphis. At the time, officials hoped to secure $34 million for the project in the next year. In February 2025, Alliance cut the ribbon on the Crisis and Wellness Center, offering 24/7 walk-in access, crisis stabilization beds, outpatient therapy, an on-site pharmacy, and detox and respite services. The Friday before that ribboncutting ceremony, Alliance broke ground on a new project right across the street. Construction is now underway for the new Children and Youth Crisis Wellness Center. This $11-million, state-of-the-art facility is slated to open in spring 2026. It will serve patients age 4–17 with walk-in crisis assessment, stabilization beds (including intensive, observation, and flexible units), psychiatric evaluation, medication management, and family support. ■ 7

Congratulations, Alliance Healthcare on your 50th Anniversary!

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Building the Future.

We are proud to partner with Alliance Healthcare Services to shine a light on mental health in our city.

A Letter From

Mark Billingsley Executive Director The Alliance Foundation

hen Alliance Healthcare Services was founded, there was no formal philanthropic fundraising arm. The work moved forward through courage, creativity, and government funding that was never guaranteed. In 2022, we established The Alliance Foundation because we recognized that the next chapter of mental health in Memphis and Shelby County would require something more: a robust, sustained culture of philanthropy for mental health. Philanthropy bridges the gap between what we can afford and what we can imagine. It helped turn a vision on paper into the Crisis Wellness Center, a modern, 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week campus that would provide a continuum of care under one roof. The goal was to provide crisis support, hope, wellness, and recovery in a welcoming and therapeutic space while also diverting hundreds of people each year away from jail and into appropriate treatment. The Alliance Foundation is now helping build the Children & Youth Crisis Wellness Center, a first-of-its-kind facility that will provide children and teens in crisis with a place designed specifically for them. But the impact of giving goes far beyond bricks and mortar. Your generosity funds clinicians, peer specialists, housing supports, mobile crisis teams, and school-based ser50th Anniversary

vices. It helps a first responder hand off someone in crisis to a safe environment in minutes instead of hours. It helps a parent find a pathway forward for a child who has lost hope. It also helps ensure that no one is turned away from lifesaving care because they cannot pay. Over the last few years, I have seen extraordinary leadership from our Foundation board, individuals, families, foundations, government leaders, companies, and faith communities who have stepped forward to say: mental health matters, and Memphis and Shelby County deserve better. Their trust in Alliance is humbling, and it is something we work on every day to honor. If this is your first introduction to The Alliance Foundation, I hope you will see yourself in these pages as a potential partner in this work. Whether through a major gift, a donor-advised fund, a planned gift, or a first-time contribution, you can help build a stronger, safer, more compassionate Memphis and Shelby County for generations to come. Thank you for believing in this mission, for standing with our clients, families, and staff, and for helping us build a community where no one faces a mental health crisis alone. With appreciation,

Mark Billingsley Executive Director The Alliance Foundation

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on five decades of hope, healing and service. Your dedication to mental health and recovery continues to make Memphis a stronger, healthier community. ■

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Need Help Now? Alliance Clinics:

24-Hour Crisis Support and Appointments Line: Call 901-369-1410 to speak with a trained crisis counselor or make an appointment any time

Caring support FOR YOUR

mental health.

24/7 Crisis Wellness Campus Locations:

Crisis Wellness Center • 3200 Broad Ave, Memphis, TN 38112 Children & Youth Wellness Center (Opening April 2026) • 602 Malcomb Street, Memphis, TN 38112

At Delta Specialty Hospital, we help adults and seniors heal from mental health and substance use challenges with personalized, evidencebased treatment in both inpatient and outpatient psychiatric programming.

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50th Anniversary

A Safe Place

Real recovery happens with privacy, stability, and dignity. By Toby Sells

iving on the streets of Memphis in the early 1990s was dangerous for anyone. Neighborhoods and their people reeled under the influence of crime, violence, and overall harsh unpredictability of drug wars, street beefs, and more. But for people living with untreated mental illness, the Memphis streets could be devastating. They had complicated issues and a thin support system added to all of the other threats posed by general homelessness. These people needed help but found that even those big, residential state hospitals for mental health care had closed. Many of these people cycled between the streets, emergency rooms, and jail, never getting the stability they needed to actually recover. They merely survived day to day without the proper medication, no access to therapy, no consistent support, and no respite. These harsh conditions made recovery almost impossible. Alliance Healthcare Services’ mental health professionals saw this over and over. They would intervene in crisis, but once someone returned to the streets,

the cycle started again. It became clear that treatment alone wasn’t enough. Some people needed a place to live — a safe, consistent home — before recovery could begin. This realization led to the creation and launch of Alliance Housing in 1998. It was a safe, permanent housing solution for mentally ill people. It was a revolutionary idea at the time with one simple premise: “Having a safe place to call home is fundamental to your recovery journey.”

enced the hardest kinds of instability: chronic homelessness, repeated psychiatric hospitalizations, or cycles through emergency rooms and the criminaljustice system. These are people who have often fallen through every gap in the community mental-health system. For many of these, traditional outpatient care isn’t enough. Alliance Housing gives them a safe and stable place to live and the wraparound support needed to break cycles and build stability.

Who its for

How it works

Alliance Housing serves adults living with serious and persistent mental illness, people whose symptoms make everyday life extremely hard without support. Many Alliance residents live with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or severe depression, conditions that can make housing, employment, relationships, and even basic safety very difficult. Many residents also have substance-use disorders, also, which can make treatment more complex and require consistent, coordinated care. The Alliance Housing program is designed for people who have experi-

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Alliance Housing is a tiered model based on the idea that recovery is a progression. The program offers five levels of housing, each to meet people where they are. At the highest level, Medically Fragile Housing provides 24/7 intensive support for adults with the most complex medical and psychiatric needs — people who cannot live safely on their own and require continuous oversight. These patients may come from the hospital, a state facility, or Alliance’s crisis unit. Just below that, Enhanced Housing offers daily support but with greater

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independence, giving residents room to build their own routines while still having staff nearby to help. Kind of like life on training wheels. From there, residents can move into Supportive Living, where the focus shifts to building skills like cooking, budgeting, housekeeping, scheduling — those everyday habits to maintain a home. Here, Alliance staff is available to help 24/7 with everything from medication management to grocery shopping to handling daily challenges. However, they are more distant than in Enhanced Housing. As patients progress, Semi-Independent Housing gives people even more autonomy, paired with check-in case management to make sure crises don’t develop and needs are met. Think of this like having a coach. They're not there for every play, but they check in regularly to help strategize and celebrate wins. Many residents ultimately reach Independent Housing. In this level, patients have their own apartment, their own space. They rent these spaces directly from Alliance. But they still have access to Alliance’s support team if it’s needed. This progression shows an Alliance belief that stable housing and the right level of support can help people not just to survive but to thrive. They can slowly reclaim their independence at a pace that fits their recovery journey.

The nitty-gritty

Patients have to qualify for the housing program, though. They must be 18 or older and have a diagnosed mental health condition that affects their daily functioning. They must meet federal income guidelines outlined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. (Rent is subsidized. Patients pay about 30 percent of their income.) Patients have to be able to handle basic self-care like eating and bathing and keep their space reasonably clean. They must get along with other residents most of the time. They also have to be free from drug or alcohol use for six months and have not committed a violent crime in the past year. Children can live with patients in independent living. For all other levels, Alliance works with patients on arrangements that help keep families connected.

Why it works

This model works because it gives people the one thing treatment alone can’t provide: a stable foundation. For adults living with serious mental illness, that foundation changes everything. When someone has a safe place to sleep, safely store medication (without the threat of theft or loss), and the ability to meet with case managers regularly, that cycle of crisis begins to slow. Alliance data show that stable housing leads to fewer psychiatric hospitalizations, fewer emergency-room visits, and far fewer interactions with law enforcement. Instead of bouncing between the streets, jail, and the hospital, residents finally have the stability required for long-term recovery. This also allows mental health treatment to be done correctly. Since they’re not looking over their shoulder for safety or for a new place to sleep, people can keep appointments with their doctors and counselors. They can take their medications consistently. They can make routines that give room for wellness. One vital thing the data can’t show but is undeniably real is that Alliance Housing provides dignity. With a home of their own residents get back privacy, autonomy, agency, and a simple sense of safety most take for granted. Alliance’s housing model is rooted in this belief: when people have a stable home and the right level of support, their chances of recovery and independence rise dramatically.

50th Anniversary

An Alliance pillar

Over the past two decades, Alliance Housing has grown into one of the organization’s core program pillars, serving as a foundation for nearly every other part of Alliance’s continuum of care. What started as a small housing and support effort in the late 1990s has expanded across multiple properties throughout Shelby County, offering different levels of support to meet the changing needs of residents. This spread across the county allows Alliance to place people closer to their communities, families, and treatment providers, while still giving them access to the intensive case management that helps keeps them stable. Housing is not a silo inside Alliance. It is sort of woven into everything the organization does. Residents are connected to Alliance outpatient therapy, psychiatric services, peer support, addiction treatment, and crisis-response programs, allowing for care even when needs shift. Housing was so important to the Alliance mission, it launched well before many of the groundbreaking programs it is well known for, including all of the programs in its modern crisisresponse network. For those and more, Alliance Housing may have provided a blueprint, a model built on stability, dignity, and wraparound support that later shaped how Alliance changed mental health care across the MidSouth region. ■

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Help Not Jail

Alliance’s partnerships with first responders divert thousands from jails and emergency rooms each year.

lliance Healthcare Services and local first responders have built one of the most important partnerships in Shelby County’s publicsafety network. Every day, law enforcement, firefighters, and EMTs encounter residents in the middle of mental-health crises — people who don’t need jail or an ER bed, but immediate, skilled behavioral-health intervention. That’s where Alliance steps in. Through programs like the CARE Team, the Mobile Crisis Unit, and close collaborations with law enforcement, Alliance gives first responders a trusted, visible place to turn when seconds matter. Instead of cycling people through emergency rooms or holding them in custody, responders can call trained clinicians who arrive on-scene, de-escalate safely, and connect individuals to the right level of care. These partnerships and more divert

By Toby Sells

more than 400 people from jail every month, steering them toward treatment rather than incarceration. “These people need help, not jail,” said Alliance Healthcare Services board chairman Quintin Robinson. A key part of this system is the Alliance Crisis Wellness Center, intentionally designed to make drop-offs fast, safe, and seamless. One secure entrance is dedicated for first responders to transition a patient into Alliance’s care in as little as five to 10 minutes, freeing officers and EMTs to return to the field. These partnerships reduce unnecessary arrests, free up emergency resources, and ensure families get help, not punishment. In a city facing rising mental-health needs, the relationship between Alliance and first responders has become a lifeline — meeting crisis with care, dignity, and hope. ■

50th Anniversary

Alliance, Thank you for all your contributions to our community. Congratulations on 50 years!

Celebrating Alliance Heathcare Services’ 50 Years of Healing & Hope

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UT Health Science Center is a proud partner with Alliance Healthcare Services to fulfill our mission of Healthy Tennesseans and Thriving Communities.

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Congratulations, Alliance Healthcare Services on your 50th anniversary!

50th Anniversary

Children & Youth

Alliance believes every child deserves a chance at a healthy, stable future. By Toby Sells

ens of thousands of children across the Memphis area struggle each year with anxiety, depression, trauma, behavioral challenges, or the ripple effects of instability at home and school. For decades, Alliance Healthcare has been the place families turn when they don’t know where else to go. What began as a small, community-based mental health center has grown into one of the largest providers of children’s behavioral health services in West Tennessee. Alliance is an anchored, countywide network that meets kids where they are: at school, at home, in clinics, and in moments of crisis. Alliance’s work with young people is rooted in a simple belief that has guided the organization since its earliest days: every child deserves a chance at a healthy, stable future, no matter their ZIP code, diagnosis, or family situation. The programs have expanded, the science has evolved, and the needs have grown. But the mission has never changed.

Built for Children

Even as the organization changed names, leadership, and footprints across the decades, the services for children and youth remained a defining pillar. Today, Alliance serves thousands of children each year, from toddlers just learning to speak to teenagers navigating school pressures, trauma, or early signs of more serious mental health concerns. The continuum is intentionally wide. Alliance treats: • ADHD and behavioral challenges • depression and anxiety • trauma and PTSD • family conflict • suicidal thoughts and crisis stabilization needs • substance-use issues • developmental and early childhood concerns From the beginning, the goal has been to remove barriers, to make care something families can realistically access. That philosophy is visible everywhere in Alliance’s Children and Youth system today: in its school-based counselors, its mobile crisis teams, its early childhood specialists, and its wraparound supports for families who need help beyond a weekly appointment.

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Meeting kids where they are

A powerful evolution in Alliance’s youth work has been the deliberate shift from expecting families to come into clinics to putting trained professionals directly in children’s daily environments. Alliance staff are now embedded in dozens of schools across Shelby County, working shoulder-toshoulder with teachers, administrators, and parents. For many students, the first time they talk to a therapist isn’t in an office, it might be down the hall from math class. This school-based footprint allows Alliance to: • catch problems early • reduce suspensions and classroom disruptions • support teachers struggling with behavioral challenges • provide on-site individual therapy and crisis intervention • connect families to long-term services This approach also means children are more likely to keep appointments. When transportation, work schedules, or family instability make traditional therapy difficult, care inside the school building removes one of the biggest barriers. Alliance also provides services inside the home, particularly for families fac-

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ing complex challenges or for younger children who respond best in familiar environments. For these kids, home visits aren’t just convenient, they’re clinically effective.

Families ﬁrst

Behind every counseling session is a family trying to navigate something hard. Alliance’s model recognizes this reality. Parents and caregivers are not treated as bystanders, they are part of Programs as kids grow the treatment team. Children are not small adults. Their Alliance clinicians help families: brains, needs, and emotional landscapes • understand diagnoses shift rapidly, and Alliance’s programs • build routines and communication reflect this complexity. strategies Specialists work with infants and • navigate school systems toddlers showing early signs of devel• manage medication safely opmental delays, trauma exposure, or • access community resources behavioral concerns. The focus is on • strengthen the home environment strengthening attachment, supporting Because Alliance serves families parents, and making sure the earliest from every corner of the county — years set the foundation for long-term urban, suburban, and rural— clinicians mental health. are skilled in adapting care to cultural, As children grow, Alliance provides economic, and individual differences. A individual therapy, family therapy, and family dealing with homelessness or inpsychiatric care for children with destability needs something different than pression, anxiety, behavioral issues, and a family struggling with communication trauma. Treatment plans often include or behavior at home. Alliance’s services both therapy and medication manreflect that nuance. agement. This gives families a single, coordinated clinical home. For youth with complex needs, wrap- The need and the around care brings together therapists, work to meet it case managers, school staff, and family Children’s mental health needs have members in one unified support team. grown significantly over the last decade. The goal is simple: keep kids stable, at Rising anxiety, social isolation, academic home, and in school. pressure, and the lasting effects of Alliance is also well versed in substance trauma have put unprecedented strain abuse issues in youth. From early experion families. Alliance has responded by mentation to more serious use, Alliance expanding staff, deepening its presoffers counseling, group work, and preence in schools, and building stronger vention programs that blend education connections with pediatricians, juvenile with real behavior-changing support. justice programs, child welfare agencies, When a young person is in immediand community partners. ate danger of harming themselves or The numbers tell the story: others, Alliance steps in with urgent, • Alliance serves thousands of chilmobile crisis intervention. These teams dren and youth every year across meet families where the crisis is hapits programs. pening — at home, school, or in the • School-based services reach students community — to stabilize the situation in dozens of Memphis-area schools. and connect them to ongoing care. • Mobile crisis teams respond to hunTogether, these programs form a dreds of youth emergencies annually. continuum of support that grows with • Alliance now stands as one of the the child and adapts to their needs, largest providers of child and adomaking Alliance one of the few organilescent behavioral health services zations in the region capable of providin West Tennessee. ing consistent care from early childEvery one of these numbers reprehood through late adolescence. sents a child who might have otherwise fallen through the cracks. The more important story, though, is 50th Anniversary

beyond the numbers. A middle-schooler who stopped acting out once someone finally listened to the reason behind his anger. A Kindergartner who could not sit still or focus until her therapist helped her parents understand and manage her ADHD. A teenager who came to Alliance during a suicidal crisis and left months later with a plan, a therapist she trusted, and a future she could see again. None of these stories appears in a data table or annual report, but they are the real measure of the work.

Building the Future of Youth Mental Health

Alliance’s story with children and youth is not static. It is evolving. Leaders are expanding early childhood programs, growing school-based partnerships, and investing in new evidence-based therapies. They’re designing services that look past a single episode of care and toward long-term outcomes: graduation, stability, healthy relationships, and futures that aren’t defined by early trauma. That commitment is becoming visible in a historic way. Alliance is currently building a new $11 million Children and Youth facility, a space designed specifically for the needs of young people and their families. The project isn’t just an expansion of square footage, it’s a public declaration of Alliance’s belief that children deserve a dedicated home for healing. The building will bring together outpatient therapy, psychiatry, crisis support, care coordination, and early childhood services under one roof, creating a modern, family-centered hub unlike anything else in the region. At a time when children’s mental health needs are surging, the facility stands as a permanent, brick-and-mortar promise that Alliance is here for the long haul. As the landscape of children’s mental health continues to shift, Alliance remains built on the same foundation it started with: meeting families where they are, treating each child as a whole person, and creating pathways to a healthier community. Because every strong community starts with strong children. And in Memphis, thousands of those children start their journey with Alliance. ■ 21

Through Any Door A new chapter of Alliance Healthcare Services has begun and its future looks bright. By Toby Sells

lliance Healthcare Services is not waiting on the future; it’s building it. And that future is unfolding in real time, as transformational milestones arrive in months instead of years. A stateof-the-art Alliance Healthcare Services Crisis Wellness Center has already redefined adult behavioral-health care. A first-ever Children and Youth Crisis Wellness Center was readying to open at the beginning of 2026. A rapidly expanding Alliance Foundation is giving the organization the ability to dream bigger — and serve more — than at any point in its 50-year history.

In 1993, she began as a therapist for families in Orange Mound. Then she was a case worker, became a licensed therapist, and a license clinical supervisor. She became deputy director, vice president, and earned the top job as CEO in 2018. “We want to save as many lives as possible,” Powell said. That ethos was there when Alliance got its start in 1963. Its founders saw Memphians living in cycles of crises without a place or the right people to heal and stabilize. Through decades of new programs — housing, emergency interventions for first responders, and children and youth — Alliance engrained itself as not just a Memphis health care Laurie Powell and the business, but as a dedicated and trusted Crisis Wellness Campus Memphis community partner. But getting to the door of Alliance’s Maybe nobody can see Alliance’s past network of care was not as easy as and future more clearly than its CEO, Powell liked. The facilities at the MemLaurie Powell. She’s worked at Alliance phis Mental Health Institute overflowed for 32 of its 50 years. In that time, she with patients and didn’t offer them evwatched Alliance grow from 100 emerything they could need. She wanted ployees to more than 500; its budget a visible front door for the organization grow from $3 million annually to more that offered complete care for patients. than $60 million. 22

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She had a vision of the future for mental health care in Memphis and Shelby County, and for scores of happier lives. Powell wanted one roof for almost all of Alliance’s network of services. She envisioned a place with crisis beds, observation, outpatient care, detox, criminal justice diversion, community support, housing connections, and more. “Through any door,” Powell said. “We want to meet you through any door.” Like founders know too well, Powell knew this dream would need money. So, through her previous experience at Alliance, and with a self-starting spirit, she wrote the grant proposal for the building herself. From there, she never took her hand off the project’s wheel. When the project grew, and costs rose, Powell worked with the Alliance board to meet them, not shrink away from them. ”From 2018 until it was open, that was my baby, that building,” Powell said. “All of my energy went into that.” That energy paid off in February 2025 when officials cut the ribbon on the $34 million Crisis Wellness Center. The six-year effort completely transformed

thealliancefoundation.org

Children & Youth Crisis Wellness Center

mental health care in Shelby County. For the first time, patients could enter one building get immediate help in a crisis, stabilize in a peaceful environment, and have access to therapists and an on-site pharmacy. Those same patients could also leave with connections to housing, job placement, and community supports. The facility at 3220 Broad Avenue is 55,000 square feet, up from the 17,00 square feet at the former Memphis Mental Health Institute crisis-only facility. The new facility has 45 crisis beds, up from 27 and a 23-hour observation unit. “We have the entire continuum of care under one roof,” said Mark Billingsley, executive director of the of the Alliance Foundation. “You can get crisis, hope, wellness, and recovery, all at one location.” For first responders, the new Crisis Wellness Center transformed crisis situations with mentally ill patients they may encounter on the streets of Memphis. For the first time, they have one, centralized place to take people. When they get there, the new center’s secure drop-off design allows them a five-to10-minute patient handoff, instead of long waits in an emergency room. This puts law enforcement and fire fighters back on the streets more quickly. It also diverts people — about 400 per month — from jail who need mental health or substance abuse help instead of a jail cell. Powell said simply, “that’s what our mission is.” “Instead of taking folks to the jail… when they’re in crisis, they’re able to now divert those folks directly to Alliance Healthcare Services,” said Alliance Healthcare Services board chairman Quintin Robinson. “Now, we’re able to provide them effective treatment im-

mediately and get them stable.” All of this makes the Crisis Wellness Center one the most modern, comprehensive, largest mental health facilities in Tennessee. All of it is available no matter a patient’s ability to pay.

Alliance Foundation

The Crisis Wellness Center — nor even Alliance’s brand new chapter — could have been possible without money, of course. It had largely relied on government grants and payments throughout its 50-year history. In 2022, though, the organization founded the Alliance Foundation, adding philanthropy to its quiver of resources and an experienced fundraiser to lead it. “Philanthropy bridges a gap between what you can afford and what you can envision,” Billingsley said. Billingsley was a fundraiser for Christian Bothers University during the Covid-19 pandemic. He watched students there struggle with mental health, got curious about the numbers, and began studying Alliance’s data. His assumptions on student mental health, loneliness, and substance abuse proved to be true. He wanted to fuel Alliance’s mission to fight back. In 2023, he was hired as its foundation’s very first executive director and was directly responsible for finding partners to fund the new Crisis Wellness Center and the Child and Youth Crisis Wellness Center. “The foundation has and will play a key role in ensuring the community need is met,” said Alliance Foundation board chairman Gary Shorb, executive director of the Urban Child Institute. “The opening of the new adult crisis center happened when the state and philanthropic donors stepped up with needed funding.” 50th Anniversary

When officials cut the ribbon on the adult Crisis Wellness Center, they stepped across the street and broke ground on the Children and Youth Crisis Wellness Center. It was unprecedented signal of forward momentum for the organization and a game-change moment for children in Memphis. The facility will be the first of its kind designed specifically for young people in behavioralhealth crisis. The need for such a place had become impossible to ignore. “There’s so much trauma in our children and families,” Powell says. “If we can address that early, we can prevent some of the adult crises we’re seeing later.” The $11 million, new center will serve children from age 4-17. It’s basically a reflection of the same services that Alliance had for adults. That includes crisis stabilization, 23-hour observation, outpatient care, and direct diversion from both emergency rooms and juvenile justice. That facility is set to open in early 2026.

Beyond

The Alliance momentum won’t stop with these two new crisis centers. Alliance leaders are already looking toward the next community that needs a modern, therapeutic space: Hickory Hill. The organization still operates an aging building there, one that Billingsley says must eventually be replaced. Beyond bricks and mortar, Alliance plans to invest heavily in cutting-edge programs, expanded community outreach, and a broader philanthropic footprint to support families before crises begin. From additional community-based teams to expanded housing and prevention programs, the organization is mapping a future in which every Memphian and Shelby Countian can find help “through any door,” as Powell said. More buildings, more programs, more access — Alliance is planning for the next decade with the same urgency than in its first five. ■

Alliance Healthcare Services

Alliance Foundation

J.W. Gibson Dan Haddow Martin Petrusek Beverly Robertson Quintin Robinson, President M. David Rudd, Ph.D. Gabby Salinas Gary Shorb, Treasurer Karole Shorter, Secretary Anna Stavrum, Vice President Stephen Wilke David Wittman Dianne Young

Joe Birch, Secretary Andy Cook Kim Gaskill Martin Petrusek, Treasurer Beverly Robertson, Vice Chair Laurie Powell (ex- officio) Quintin Robinson Stacey Rokas M. David Rudd, Ph.D. Gary Shorb, Chairman Stephen Wilke

BOARD

The Alliance Foundation would like to thank these organizations and individuals who have made major contributions to the Capital Campaign. State of Tennessee Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Alliance Healthcare Services The Alliance Foundation The Assisi Foundation of Memphis The Day Foundation Shelby County Government The City of Memphis Anonymous Foundation Shelby County Sheriff ’s Office

Anonymous Family United Healthcare Speer Charitable Trust Canale Foundation Anise and Ron Belz SouthWorth Capital Management First Horizon Foundation Rachel and Rebecca Belz Debbie and Martin Petrusek Glenda and Gary Shorb Kim and John Gaskill

If you are interested in making a Capital Campaign contribution, please contact Mark Billingsley at The Alliance Foundation at (901) 569-5070 or visit