Two behavioral healthcare organizations that serve a combined 18 southern and western counties in Kentucky are merging.
Lifeskills, Inc. and the Pennyroyal Center announced the move Tuesday.
The new combined organization will continue to provide addiction treatment, mental health, and developmental disability services at all 26 service locations it currently operates.
Lifeskills President and CEO Joe Dan Beavers said the merger builds on years of informal partnerships between the two groups.
“This is just a way to really formalize that, and give us the opportunity to come to the table when we negotiate for, say, grants and pilot projects and new contracts, we’ll have a larger-scale operations, and that’ll make it more attractive for folks who want to partner with us that way,” Beavers said.
The new organization will continue to be known as Lifeskills in the ten counties where it operates, while Pennyroyal Center will continue to maintain its name and branding in the eight counties it serves.
Beavers says the organization has 875 total employees, including 91 licensed clinicians, with no layoffs planned as a result of the merger.
One area of emphasis for the new, larger organization will be identifying pregnant mothers with substance abuse issues “so that she and the baby don’t have the health consequences of using substances during pregnancy, and after childbirth. And the key point is providing follow-up services after that,” Beavers said. Those additional services will include things like continued addiction treatment, as well as employment and housing services.
“We believe this partnership strategically solidifies our ability to continue delivering high quality services to the most vulnerable individuals in the communities we serve. I’m looking forward to fulfilling our mission as a safety net provider with LifeSkills as a partner,” said Pennyroyal Center CEO Eric Embry.
The new combined organization will provide 189 addiction treatment beds and 32 crisis treatment beds, and expects to provide care to 26,000 individuals and families annually.
